#but it’s not like she really asked to be in this position though

[sugarwarachan]

addicted to you

summary: Kirishima Eijiro's pretty positive he’s going to hell. You can’t listen to your buddy’s girlfriend cum that many times and not be on a one-way ticket to the fiery pits of doom. When he's at the end of his rope, one night might change the dynamic of his relationship with you. pairing: bakugou x reader x kirishima wc: 1.6k content warnings: smut mdni, threesome dynamics, fem!reader, dirty talk, degradation, voyeurism, oral, m!receiving, kirishima's raging size kink

Plap plap plap -

"Oh god, Kats..."

It should be fucking illegal for walls to be this thin, Kirishima thinks, staring up at his ceiling, willing his dick to soften. This is the fifth night in a row that he’s heard your guts getting rearranged by his best friend, and it’s starting to take a toll on the pro hero.

“Yeah, baby? Too much for ya?”

A soft groan emits from Kirishima’s throat at the high-pitched whine you make in response.

It’s not gentlemanly of him at all, but he pictures how gorgeous your face must look right now, mouth hanging open, eyes rolled up in your head—

"Not enough," he hears you shoot back.

He slams the pillow over his face and rolls onto his belly, rutting his dick across the mattress in one long drag.

Fuck.

When he first heard you two have sex, he really tried to do the respectable thing and not listen, he swears. When noise-canceling headphones didn't cut it, he went on long walks the minute you and Bakugou disappeared behind closed doors. It’s made for some very awkward late-night convenience store runs.

He lifts the pillow from his face. No noises sound from next door. He sighs. Time to address the raging cockstand in his pants, then.

The fantasy he conjures is familiar, well-worn. He starts in the middle this time, at the part where you’re already gagging on his dick, eyes welling with tears as be bullies his cock down your throat.

Kirishima grabs the lube from his nightstand and coats his palm. His hips buck into his hand as he works himself up and down, idly wondering how much of him you'd be able to take. He hates it, but the thought of your face scrunching up as you struggle to fit him all the way in shreds his sanity to ribbons.

"Kiri?" your voice sounds through the door while his hand is mid-stroke on his cock.

It’s like he summoned you.

"Yeah?" Even that minor syllable sounds like he’s fucking drugged.

"Can I come in please?"

His eyes bug out of his head. Are you fucking serious?

"Just a minute!" he shouts, shucking up his sweatpants and toweling off the mess between his thighs.

He hears Bakugou’s voice next. "Just let us in, idiot, she’s gotta ask you something."

Shit.

Shit shit shit shit—

He’s gonna die tonight. You’re probably outside thinking he’s a digusting pervert, in here fucking jerking off to you—what was he thinking?

Apparently not even the panic can make his dick cooperate though. He tucks it into the waistband of his pants and prays for a swift end.

When he opens the door, he expects to dodge a punch. But you’re standing there in a see-through red teddy, and all semblance of thought goes out the window.

“Did you finally hear me this time, Kiri?”

Huh?

He’s pretty sure he just splutters. Bakugou barks out a laugh behind you. "Told you this dummy was in denial, pretty girl."

His brain stumbles. "You wanted me to hear?"

You let out a husky giggle that goes straight to his groin. If possible, he gets harder.

"I like how you watch me, Kiri," you admit, eyes darting to his lips. His mouth goes dry. "I keep thinking about how you’d touch me."

He balls his hands into fists at his side to keep from hauling you onto his bed. "This is something you two have talked about?"

Bakugou has the audacity to look annoyed. "Doesn’t take a fuckin’ genius to figure it out. You’re always starin’ at her. Besides," he runs a hand straight down your back; you shiver and lean back into him. "Can’t deny this sweet thing much."

The good thing about being a pro hero is that you learn to adapt to situations quickly. Kirishima's brain is spinning with this new information, but he’s reacting before he realizes it, hand reaching out for your waist.

Your nipples tighten—he wants his tongue on them, sucking through the lace. He looks to Bakugou, but the man’s just sauntering into the room, settling into the desk chair with his legs kicked out, gray sweatpants tented.

“Go on, then.” He palms his cock. “Make her feel good like you’ve been wanting.”

Kirishima doesn’t need to be told twice. He picks you up and arranges you both on the bed, your thighs draped over his hips. You’re soaking wet; he can feel the slick dripping from your pussy fall on his stomach.

He’s so hard it hurts.

You’re not much better off, whimpering and rutting in his lap like a bitch in heat.

"Touch me, Kiri, please," you say, nosing at his neck and sucking on his pulse point. "Need your big hands on me."

God, you even beg cute.

His hands span up your back, pressing your tits into his chest and capturing your lips in a searing kiss. You groan into his mouth, hands tangling in his hair, tugging at the strands.

"Wild little thing, aren’t you, baby?" Kirishima chuckles when you glare at him. "No judgment here, I fucking love it. Been listenin' to you long enough to have an idea of how you like it."

He looks over at Bakugou. "You just gonna watch?"

"Gotta make sure you do it right, Shitty-hair," he grits out, fist moving up and down. “Ya already need me to step in?”

Kirishima laughs under his breath. "Fuck you too, asshole." He cradles your face in one hand, tilting your lips up to his. "Come here, princess, let me see how hard I can make you cum, huh? Harder than he does?"

One breath against your clit and you’d probably scream for him right now. He can't help but puff out his chest a little at the thought.

Clothing comes off in a flurry. Every inch of skin exposed is a fucking godsend, more for him to touch, to caress.

When his cock bobs in between your bodies, he swears your mouth goes slack.

"Oh, Kiri," you breathe out, wrapping your hands around him. "You didn’t tell me you had such a pretty dick.” He chokes and rolls his hips into your fist. "You’re big, too. I don’t know if you’ll fit all the way."

He grunts. "Fuck baby, you can’t say shit like that to me, drives me fuckin’ crazy—"

The smile you give him is sinful. "I know." You shut him up by undulating your hips, sliding your pussy folds along the head of his cock.

"She's a little brat, Kiri, don't be afraid to put her in her place," Kirishima hears Bakugou say in the background. His voice is strained, husky. Both of you moan at the sound.

"Is that right, princess?" He nips at your mouth. "You think I'll give you whatever you want?"

You nod, the sweetest whine falling from your lips as he starts to inch his dick inside your quivering hole. You're so tight it's like your pussy can't decide if it wants to suck him in or spit it out.

"Stay fucking still," he growls, hold fast and hard on your hips. You squeal at his tone, gasping as he stretches you open, working the tip in and out.

Your hands scrabble at the sheets, his forearms, anything. He just holds you in place as your cunt gets sloppier and sloppier, lewd squelching noises filling the room.

"Kiri please just fuck me. Please, I've been thinking about it for weeks now—"

Bakugou kneels on the side of the mattress.

"You're mouthy tonight, baby. All because you're showing off for him?" He taps the side of your mouth. "Let's put that mouth to better use, yeah?"

If Kirishima wasn't about to bust his load, he sure as fuck is now, watching you greedily suck his best friend's dick as he works his into your sopping wet core.

When he finally bottoms out, the sound you make is pornographic, throat stuffed up with dick, humming out your pleasure...

"God that's so fucking hot, baby, look at you." He sets a rough, steady pace. Your tits bounce as your throat works to take Bakugou. Drool trickles down your chin; he wipes it away and squeezes your neck. It's driving him crazy, watching your tongue and lips work in tandem. "Takin' dick so well, there's a good girl."

Bakugou has a tight grip on the headboard, veins straining in his neck.

"Fuckin' hell, I'm close. Pinch her clit, Eiji, that'll make her cum quick. Get her there for me, let me see her fuckin' scream."

Kirishima rolls your bud between his fingers, and sure enough, your pussy starts clamping down on him. His rhythm gets erractic, wild. All he can think about is the sticky wet rush of slick between your legs, your channel milking his cock like you'd been waiting for weeks for it—

Bakugou slides out of your mouth with an obscene pop, spitting into his palm. "Dirty little slut, love getting used, don't ya?"

Kirishima keeps working your clit, dick jumping inside you. "There's our pretty girl, doing so well. Where do you want me to cum, honey? Can I cum here?"

He presses down on your tummy and pinches your clit at the same time. Slick gushes out of you.

"Cum in her, Kiri," he hears Bakugou bark out, hand speeding up. "I'll clean it up later, just wanna see you both cum with your dick in her."

It's embarassing, but that's really all he needs to hear before he's coming the hardest he ever has, cock twitching and pumping seed into you as Bakugou spends onto your tits.

Your own orgasm takes you over, bowing your back off the bed, mouth hanging open as incoherent babble falls from your lips. Kirishima fucks you through it, each small tremor of your subsequent orgasms like jolts of lightning.

He's pretty sure he knows the answer when he asks, "We get to do that again, right?"

You look at Bakugou, who just smirks. "Won't get rid of us that easily."

taglist: @luleck, @yesshayhere @grim-reapers-wife @dai-png @burgvndy

[euphoria-looney]

Thank you... for playing with me.

Pt.1

Bake No Hana (Nightcord at 25:00 ft. Kaito)

"It's finally come around, my punishment for having been born. In order to put an end to it, I stop breathing— Ah, I'm fed up with this."

I approached the girl who chose me last round, Penelope. I called her Penny though, and thought the name was cute.

It suits her.

Last round I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do, but she pulled me into her group, and even against the male group, we won!

It didn’t help that crunch that echoed across the room each time a team lost though, Astro has been colder than ever and the old guy got separated from me before I could follow him. I think it was fate that we all ended up on the same team.

I’m trying to sound positive because, at this moment in time, I have gone too far to give up now, whether that be hope or, the sick truth, for the money.

My mind is always racing and is looking for the truth that I’m hiding from myself. 

I’ve killed people intentionally or not, just to keep going for a cash prize that I’m not even sure I’ll win.

This isn’t the situation I wanted to be in.

I’ve said that line so many times.

When I was 5 and my mother ran away, that wasn’t the situation I wanted to be in.

When I kept getting neglected and abused in the manor, that wasn’t the situation I wanted to be in.

When I got kicked out at the mere age of 18, That wasn’t the situation I wanted to be in.

Getting into debt and sinking deeper into the amount needed to pay back, I bet you can think of the line I said next.

And now with all the corpses I’ve been near, the money dropping into the pig, the masked soldiers that looked upon you with their weapons, was this really how I was going to be free from debt? Was this the situation I wanted to be in?

“Hey!” Penny turned to look at me.

“Want to pair up?” I tilted my head at her.

“Why should I?”

“I don’t picture you going around here and begging these jerks.” I looked around at our options.

“Wouldn’t that bother you?” I raised an eyebrow to her.

“Bothering me or not isn’t the concern, winning or losing is.” Despite that, she didn’t make any plans to move away from me.

I cheered fondly at her.

“Then play with me, I’ll make sure you’ll win.”

“What will you do?”

“Whatever it takes.”

“... What do you see in me?” 

“Well, I wanted to ask you that.”

“You were someone who looked like they would come with me.”

“I feel the same way.” I raised my hand offering a handshake.

She took my hand, so warm compared to how she acted, and I tightened the grip before releasing her hand.

I’m glad we got the teams out of the way before the timer ended.

—

Third POV

“Alright, there's a five-minute break before the games start, my good sirs. Do whatever you’d like before coming back to meet up and enjoy the show, they’ll be playing marble games.” The frontman announced before everyone dispersed.

“What was that imbecile thinking, joining a game like this? She even had the option to leave and she chose to come back?!” Damian scoffed, rolling his eyes out of agitation.

“They did…” Duke murmured.

“No, they didn’t.” Damian looked at Duke as if he were mad.

“Yes, they did, a while back? You were there and berated them for acting like their mother…” Duke rebutted.

“That must’ve felt so humiliating…”

Dick rubbed his arm.

“... she was probably terrified to face you again, especially with how you treated her…”

Damian piped down after that.

“You’re not any better than us, Duke. You also shunned them away,” Tim said, defending himself and the others.

“I’m not saying I’m better than anyone and this doesn’t excuse what I did but all of you guys made it known through the whole manor that she was just like her mother, so greedy for money that even when she had too much she wanted more, is that what we’re seeing in front of us though?! A girl who's so loaded but still wants more?!” That left Tim speechless and guilty.

“I know what it’s like to be financially unstable, obviously after losing my parents and trying to find them it wasn’t easy, and it didn’t make it any easier with not even a penny in my pocket, so these people “killing themselves for a little money” even though it’s a life or death situation, that’s no different then being “free” out there, especially not in Gotham. So when Bruce rescued me and treated me with kindness and support, I thought that all his kids got this treatment, but now you guys want to berate her and call her an idiot but she was forced into this position…”

He turned to Bruce but was only met with the man looking away.

“Maybe when she left this game, she realized her life wasn’t meant enough and came back to this dehumanizing environment, she didn’t come for us to help her because of the memories of last time, she probably was so nervous always walking on eggshells around us that the moment we rejected her she knew that this was her only option.”

Jason knew it wasn’t targeted specifically at him, but at one point, he knew he had a bond with [name], that innocent kid with those cute bug eyes and that gummy smile. They had something special. Then he died and came back with the news. At that moment, he couldn’t help but feel betrayed by [name]’s mom. With everything that had happened to him,, he had changed his character, so with no one to blame…

Well, you are your mother’s daughter.

Doesn’t the saying go ‘like mother, like daughter?’

Also, the situation didn’t help with him constantly not talking to her, you’d have understood the feeling he got when she came to the manor after being kicked out just to beg for money?

He seriously could not blame the situation on you, did he, or did he forget that he contributed to it too?

The ignoring, the sneering, the insults, how one looks from the person she trusted the most could shatter her heart.

And of course that would be the first conversation she had with you... You didn’t talk to her.

“Well, did you guys hear what she said to that other girl, seems she has no plans-”

A knock interrupted the chat.

“I’m sorry sirs, but the games are starting. May I have your bets?”

“240”

“Wow, all of you, just in case she ever loses, would you guys like to buy her body? I assume you’re family and had an interest in that girl?”

“You!-” Damian was stopped by Bruce, who also had his hands clenched in anger.

“Thank you, that would be appreciated.” Smiled Bruce.

“Of course, and I didn’t mean you lose the bet, it’s just that the odds are against some players and good for others.” The Frontman nodded before heading off.

“Don’t worry, guys. Just hang on. I’m finding the location as fast as I can,” Oracle said through the earpiece before they left for the lounge.

Their nice, comfortable lounge.

—

If I am ready to die, why not know a little bit more about the person I’m spending my last moments with?

“You know~ since the last Joker attack nothing has been this tragic…”

“What game are we playing?” No small talk then… but that’s okay.

“Dang, you’re cold as ice.”

“What game are we playing, girl?”

“You tell me. These games are probably only known to these oldies, tell you what let’s make our own game, ten marbles we could do anything with that.

“So let’s… end this game in a single round.” I looked down at my lap.

“All or nothing. A simple bet.” I looked back at her again with my stupid smile that showed my gums and tilted my head.

It was something I was used to doing a lot as a kid.

I don’t know why I’m acting like this, maybe it’s because my misery will finally end.

That took a dark turn. Let’s get back on track.

“Don’t tell me you’d… rather do what they’re doing?” 

We looked at the old guys behind Penny, throwing their marbles that hit against each other. What was the purpose of the game?

Get the other players' marbles out before they do.

“Okay. Playing what then?” 

I huffed in amusement. 

“What’s with the hurry?” 

“You’re just dying to kill me, huh?” I teased

That was a rhetorical question, we both knew it…

At least I knew it was.

“We’ve got a lot of time on our hands, and we’re playing one round. What’s the rush?”

“What are we gonna do before then?”

“Talk” It had been a while since I’d done that with somebody in this hellhole.

“About what?” 

“Things we never told anybody about I guess.”

“One of us is gonna die, so… it doesn't matter what we tell each other. No one can really embarrass themselves anymore. Okay?”

—

“How long have you been in Gotham? It isn’t a place where one would particularly reside.” We were both sitting at the stairsteps at this point.

I started with a question.

“Just been here since I was born, my mom found the “love of her life” here. She said we’d enjoy it”

“Did you?”

“...” She didn’t reply but rather stayed silent.

“Your family, are they still here with you?”

“My brother.”

“Any parents?”

“My father died getting shot in some back alleyway, at the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

“And your mom?”

“She got high off of drugs when she lost my dad, she overdosed not too long ago and her family took her away from us blaming us for the reason she suffers. I don’t know if she’s still alive and recovering or dead.”

“Where’s your brother now then?”

“In a shelter,” she hesitated. I was asking more than giving, but she still replied, and that was enough for both of us.

“If you win this and get the money, what will you spend it on?”

“Buy a house for me and my brother, then take us somewhere else, Gotham is no place for us, even if the top schools are here, there’s a price to pay for everything.” She was right about that.

I scoffed a little bored of that answer.

“Hey~ with this amount of money you could buy that and so much more- is there anywhere you’d like to travel?”

“Houma.”

“Houma?”

She nodded her head.

“It looked peaceful and had lower crime rates than most places. It didn’t look like Gotham at all.”

I couldn’t help but huff at that.

“Hey. Don’t you think you should dream bigger, huh? Do Keystone City. Hold on– Go to Metropolis instead. They even have lower crime rates than most.

Penny finally turned her head around and looked at me for once out of this entire conversation.

“Metropolis?”

“Yeah, the Superfam lives there. You know the Kryptonite versions of the Batfam in Gotham?”

It seems she didn’t care much about superheroes which made me giggle.

“Really?”

She shook her head.

“Oh no, then we have you fix that, we’ll have a girl’s night out every week in Metropolis and get to meet the Superfam in the flesh, okay?” 

She looked away at that.

“Oh, guess we can’t both leave here?”

…

“Back when my father was alive he was the perfect guy, he was too generous for his good, I was too naive as a kid rushed into the room where he laid to rest before he was covered and saw his gorey body,” Penny told me.

“The first body I saw was this poor kid on the side of the street abandoned just like me, he died inhaling too much of Scarecrow’s gas.”

“Abandoned?”

“Oh! I haven’t told you my backstory, it’s not as tragic as yours, no. My mother married a billionaire and took cash before running away without me when I was five. Everybody blamed her actions on me, making me feel too shameless to ever ask for cash, then I got kicked out at eighteen and took too much debt for regular supplies and school debt then landed here.”

“I wonder if I had money, what would I do… Go to Houma with you?”

A silence ensued between us making me look away.

“Sorry, I forgot again.”

As the timer started running out the sun kept going down even lower. Penny stood up.

“Let’s do this.” I smiled at that.

—

Third POV

By now, some VIPs were disappointed not because they had lost money but because they had lost the guessing game of lives.

Others were happy with the result.

But for our main characters well, can you guess how they’re feeling?

Unnerved, whatever [name] was planning. Are they going to win this game, or will they lose? Would the Wayne family see their dear family die with a bullet to the head?

Bruce never meant to treat you like that, but you’d have to understand your mother betrayed him, and you were there… and you didn’t do anything.

Oh, what could you have done? 

Alert the whole house of her leaving? Then what?

It was never your fault, you did everything you could to appease them, they just never forgive your mother.

—

We stood up passing a dead body and went to an “empty” land.

“Whoever can roll it farther than the other person wins, okay?”

I let Penny get the head start.

I held my marble in my hand.

Pondering.

I didn’t have much to live for, did I?

I had no friends, no family, and nothing to my name other than the daughter of a gold digger or the bastard child.

What’s the point?

I I guess this game was pointless after all.

I let the marble slide off my hands landing a few inches from my foot.

Straightening my posture I feel Penelope approach me.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” She grabbed me by the collar of the tracksuit.

“You win, I lose.”

“Stop. Why the hell would you try to do that?” She still kept a firm hold on me.

“Butter fingers, what can I say?” I chuckled, scrunching my eyebrows at her.

“Making sure I won. Is that what this is?”

She slammed me into the wall again.

“Did you think I would be grateful? Throw it again.” She demanded.

“And I still wouldn’t be able to win.” I kept my smile on.

“Ugh, don’t be dramatic and let me die in style, hm?” 

This was the reality, and if one of us had something memorable to do once we had gotten out of there, it would be her. Wouldn’t it?

“[name], that’s bullshit! Stop acting cool and just do a real throw!”

I sighed no longer keeping my damn smile on my face.

“I have nothing.”

“What?” Penelope didn’t let go, though. It seemed like she would allow me to talk a bit more.

“You have a reason to get out of this place… I don’t.”

Penelope kept breathing shakily. 

“I thought hard about what I would do, over and over, nothing. It’s like a dead end.” I felt myself tearing up.

I didn’t want to burst out in tears, I hadn’t done that in a while. 

I’ve always hated getting emotional, but it feels like a relief to get it off my chest.

“If anybody has a reason to go back out still there, it’d be you.” I laughed despite tasting the salty tears that leaked from my eyes.

Penelope didn’t seem the type to get emotional either, though that didn’t stop her from letting a couple of tears flow.

“Don’t die here, go out there… and find a place where you and your brother can reside. Far from any crime preferably to Houma.” I chuckled.

…

As Penelope walked away, I didn’t want that to be how our interaction ended, no, not like this pathetic goodbye.

“Penny!” I wasn’t sure she’d respond to that nickname but to my surprise, she stopped.

It made me widen my eyes briefly before going into a somber expression.

I held in my tears at that moment, stabilizing my voice.

“Thank you… for playing with me.” I was glad the guard let me have my closure, you don’t think they’d have the heart with their roles.

BANG

Player 240, eliminated.

—

The blood sprayed out before her body collapsed onto the ground with a sickening thud.

This wasn’t the situation anybody wanted to be in.

— 

That’s it for now. In the next part of this option, the Batfamily will suffer and have flashbacks, as one does. If anyone has any advice on how to write some scenes, that would be spectacular.

I’ll be working on a request and then my So Much More series before getting to Astro! And then maybe the next part of this, so don’t expect it anytime soon. That’s all from me!

Taglist time! ❤

Also, I love the idea and from fic from both @jellyfishmoon97 and @not-weirdoshrek and a new addition that I'm super happy I bumped into @alilobsessive.

@holysoulsweets @sh4rk-k1d @sillysealsies @loomspuddle @cantfindmelol @alwaysholymilkshake @leitor-sonolento @randomlyappearingartist @beyondblissxoxo @sirairi @yhin-gg @frankie-moon3 @welpthisisboring @yokesmam @bat1212 @enchantingarcadecreation @twismare @delias-stuff @ladylupuscrow @ferchu0406 @c4xcocoa @cruzerforce4256 @anonymoushehehehe @godoreo22 @blerp-22 @facelessisnthere @sirenetheblogger @themightybee4067 @boredselkie @tiffyisme3760 @random4137 @midnightgrimoire @mybones537 @chaoticmoontimetravel @jsprien213

I think that's everyone who wanted to be tagged, I hope I didn't spell any wrong and tag the wrong person.

[thechaoticcherub]

Cherub

Pairing: Priest!Joel Miller x reader

Summary: Reader is a student teacher at the Catholic nursery school attached to the church she attended growing up. While becoming disillusioned with being a teacher she runs into the church's priest that she has known since he taught her confirmation classes.

Warnings: 18+ please, large age gap, power dynamics, dubcon(?), priests, catholicism, lots of religious imagery, i mean i am GOING TO HELL, blatant blasphemy, violation of holy spaces, joel is a PERVERT, some mentions of him being interested in reader as a underage teenager(no actual underage anything), masturbation, sexual shame, humiliation, embarrassment, innocence kink, virgin reader, fingering, unprotected penetrative sex, light choking(not even really choking), rough sex, pussy pronouns, no use of y/n, religious trauma, i really gotta underscore how much I violate holy things from christianity, smoking, cigarettes, cum play, lots of pet names, no daddy kink but lots of calling him Father

Notes: Okay please bless me lord for I have SINNED. this is FILTH even thought there isn't like constant smut it might be the dirtiest thing i've written? I'm so sorry to Catholics everywhere. And I'm sorry if I fucked up terminology. I tried to do lots of research but you know, liturgical shit is hard to understand. also yeah, i get how much this is more writer insert than reader considering the title. Ahem. I'm sorry this is again not really edited or beta read. sorry. Well I hope you enjoy!

OH! also: I have a playlist for this if anyone would be interested, let me know!

Word Count: 6.4 K

🎀👼🏻Home | Ask | Masterlist👼🏻🎀

It had been a long week at Holy Trinity Catholic Nursery School and you were exhausted, when you had first started your student teaching unit you had been beyond excited to be back at the church you grew up going to. You were familiar with the facilities including the big, beautiful sanctuary and the priest who still presided over the Parish was the priest who had done confirmation with you. Father Joel Miller had always been a slightly off-beat, interesting, yet intimidating choice for priest of a Catholic church. He was known for smoking Marlboro Reds in his office, having a scruffy unshaven face, giving short homilies in his gruff Texan accent and seeming more like a cowboy than a priest. 

There was something about him though that had always sent a shiver down your spine. You couldn’t tell if it was a good shiver, or something sinister. He was handsome, that was a known fact around the church when you were growing up, the other girls in your confirmation class giggled about it and  even now your co-workers at the nursery school often made jokes or teasing comments to each other. He had to be in his mid-fifties now with greying stubble and hair and lines around his eyes and forehead but yes, you did still find him attractive, but it didn’t shake the sense that your tingling sense of something might not have been entirely positive. 

Maybe it was the simple fact that his eyes always had lingered on you for longer than you felt necessary. Even when you were a young teenager in his confirmation classes, learning prayers, handing in your sermon notes, sitting in mass every Sunday, you felt his eyes on you. You never understood what it was about you that made him look for so long but he had. Now that you were working on becoming a teacher like you had always hoped, you found that when he came to visit the classrooms, he spent his time asking you questions about the classroom instead of the lead teachers. That was easy to brush off as maybe he felt like he was helping you learn, but when you brought the children to the main church for their daily prayers his eyes would spark on you and he would come to you first when he gave a blessing to everyone. His hand resting on your forehead as he spoke his short blessing before drawing the sign of the cross on your forehead with his thumb, his eyes stuck on yours as if he would never look away. Eventually he always did, moving on to each individual child and adult from your classroom, but he didn’t linger with any of them the way he lingered with you. 

Now, as the day was coming to a close you had snuck away from the classroom to try and escape the exhaustion that was working with children day in and day out. You had always wanted to be a Nursery school teacher but now that you were experiencing a classroom you understood why burnout was so common. You had made up a bad excuse and snuck down the cool hallway, away from the school portion of the building,  to the candle lit nave, you weaved your way through the pews over to the side aisle lined with stone arches. You took a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of the cutesy dress you wore because of your ridiculous desire to be the next Ms Frizzle. In your opinion, just under the arches to the side of the pews was the best place to sneak away to and smoke without being in too much danger of being caught. The incense that was regularly burned covered up most of the smell, you could enjoy the view of the sanctuary and the altar while you smoked and it was usually deserted. You tucked yourself under one of the arches, your back pressed into the cool stone and lit up. Taking a long inhale you relished in the fact that you weren’t surrounded by screaming preschoolers. It was allowing yourself these couple minutes away from the chaos of the end of the day that made this week bearable. You smoked and tapped the ash off onto the stone floor, rubbing it into the cracks with your foot as you went. 

“You ain’t sposed to be smokin’ in here, young lady.” The voice came from a few yards away by the priest’s door that opened into the sanctuary by the altar, you jumped and turned to face the man whose voice it was. Father Miller was watching you as he walked across the sanctuary, first past the altar and then the pulpit and down through the central gap between the altar rails. You felt frozen in place, you had smoked here multiple times and no one had ever come in and of course now, it was Father Miller who had found you here. He stood in front of the first pew and crossed his arms over his chest, still watching you. 

“Shit,” you said, unsure of what to do with the lit cigarette. Usually when you were done smoking you’d put it out on the floor and rub out the mark and shove the butt into the pack to get rid of later. Now he was there and the smoke from your cigarette filtered up above you, curling against the stone arch and then dispersing. 

“Got a fresh mouth on you too,” He added with a laugh. “Never knew that about you before,” he crossed in front of the pew, walking towards you. You felt like a small animal caught in a trap and he was some kind of giant predator stalking towards you. He was wearing all black, his shirtsleeves were rolled up and his clerical collar was bright white against the black of the shirt. 

“I’m sorry, Father, I…didn’t think-” You broke off because really you didn’t think you would be caught, not that you didn’t think it would be a problem or anything. Joel’s eyes widened a little as he waited for you to finish your sentence, he turned at the end of the pew to walk along the side aisle to the first arch where you were still trapped. His finger grazed alone the  wood of the pew, 

“You didn’t think…?” He prompted when your voice faltered. You shrugged, 

“I don’t have an excuse, Father.” You admitted. Father Miller walked right up to you in your alcove that you thought would be so secret and stood in front of you. You remembered how intimidated by him you had always been, suddenly you felt fifteen again, having to recite scripture and prayers correctly in your weekly confirmation classes. Your heart thudded in your chest as he looked down at you, he was tall, broad and as he stood so close to you, popping any sort of personal space bubble you thought you had, you realized you could smell him. Tobacco, cool mint, fresh sweat and then underneath it all, an acrid heat, almost metallic. It mingled into something not unpleasant but it did mean he was too close. 

“Go ahead and smoke that, kid.” Joel’s eyes moved from yours down towards the cigarette dangling in your fingers and he nodded slowly, encouraging you. 

“I-I shouldn’t…” You stuttered, still looking up at him, almost transfixed on his face, still frozen there half with fear, half just trapped in his gaze. 

“No, you shouldn’t…but you already are, cherub, may as well finish.” Joel said and you watched as a sly smirk lifted the corner of his mouth. Cherub. Not typically did a priest use any sort of nickname for a parishioner, let alone a pet name like that. If anything they would say “my child” if in confession. Cherub sent that familiar shiver down your spine, a memory surfaced of that word on his lips years before. It had been to you then too,

“Say a hail mary and you will be absolved, cherub.” You must have confessed something to him or done something wrong in class.  Your heart sped at the memory and your eyes flicked up to meet his. He was telling you to smoke, daring you to and there was no reason not to anymore. It wasn’t like he didn’t smoke in the church, Mr. Marlboro Reds in his office. So you held his gaze as best you could and lifted the cigarette back to your lips and inhaled. You blew the smoke away from him and he watched you, like he had so many times before. 

“Aint you supposed to be with the kids?” He asked, still standing to close, his scent still wafting over you, still just watching you smoke. 

“Yes,” You said softly, “But I needed…a minute away,” You didn’t even want to admit how much you needed to get away from your job, your responsibilities but the words spilled out of you before you could stop them. You hurriedly brought the cigarette up to your lips again, as if to silence yourself.

“A minute away…” Joel repeated, “To pray?” He asked, his voice mocked you because even though you were in the church, you weren’t lighting a candle or on your knees asking for peace. You were smoking and feeling bad for yourself. You started to shake your head, the cigarette dangling from your lips now, before you could even complete the motion his hand was on your chin, halting your movement.  His thick thumb dug into one side of your jaw, his pointer finger curled down the other side. Breath, and all thought was knocked out of you. All you could do was look up at the chiseled face above you.  There was grey in the scruff on his cheeks and peppering his mustache and  his chin was tilted up as his eyes looked down on you, examining your face. The old priest shouldn’t have been touching you like this, you knew that but your feet wouldn’t work, your stomach twisted and the shiver running up and down your spine still couldn’t make up its mind about whether it was a good shiver or a bad shiver. “I think you need’ta get on your knees to pray more often,” his voice had lowered slightly but the gruff resonance in it was enough to shake you. You thought for a half second he was about to force your to your knees now but instead he reached up with his other hand and plucked the dangling cigarette from your lips. He put it into his mouth, inhaled and then removed it, taking a step away from you,

“Thanks, cherub.” he said and then he turned on his  nice leather shoes and walked back up through the pews. 

+

You didn’t return to the church to smoke again. You did tell yourself you would go to mass more often. The thoughts you were having about that evening were completely unholy, and you needed to force them out of your mind. You needed to take the Eucharist and try and heal yourself from these sins of the flesh. For the first time in a long time you had been tempted, really tempted to do something you knew was wrong. When you were young you had touched yourself plenty but as you got older you became more and more disgusted by your actions and resisted it, knowing self love was sinful, but that interaction with Father Joel Miller had you thinking things that made your body heat up. The crawling shiver up your spine had been a warning, a warning about feelings that had bubbled up in your tummy and how it would be so easy for those feelings, those desires, wants, needs to take over. It was your own dirty mind that was allowing you to believe it was because of Father Joel looking at you that you got that creeping sensation. He was a priest, a little bit of an unorthodox priest, but a priest nonetheless and you were allowing dirty thoughts to change your opinion of him. So going to mass was a good idea. 

You didn’t allow yourself to look at Father Miller during the service on Sunday, but his gruff voice speaking his homily reminded you vividly of the way he said “cherub”. The way he had told you that you needed to “get on your knees to pray.” You could barely pay attention to his words because simply his voice, that resounding, husky voice did something to you and warmth pooled deep in your belly. It felt like there was a persistent drip of warmth sliding lower down, lower to that place that remained mostly unexplored by you, by anyone. All because of his voice.

You felt like it vibrated through the floor of the church and up into your pew, making you pulse with your disgusting desires.

You kept your eyes down, on your hymnal, refusing to look up at Father Miller because there was a quiet part of you, in the back of your mind, that told you if you looked at him, you’d be meeting his gaze. That would do absolutely nothing to help control that heat that was pooling inside of you. 

When you stood to go to the altar rails and receive the eucharist your legs were wobbly, damn this weakness. There was no reason to sexualize Father Miller’s kindness to you. He hadn’t gotten you in trouble for smoking in the church and in return you were allowing these debased thoughts to happen to you in church on your way to receive the very body and blood of Christ. While you walked up the aisle, the crucifix directly in front of you, a statue of the Virgin Mary staring into your soul, you could feel that drip of heat wetting your underwear. You tried your hardest to tell yourself it was nothing, it was just natural discharge, not what you knew it to be, your body’s reaction to Father Miller’s voice as he spoke holy words, prayers and talked of repentance during his Homily.

At the altar rail you knelt down on the cushion and clasped your hands in front of you to pray while you waited for your turn to receive communion.  You knew you would have to look at Father Miller while he gave you the body of Christ but you were scared, you had forced yourself to avoid looking at him all throughout mass, you hadn’t met his gaze when you knew he was looking at you and you told yourself time and time again that his gaze meant nothing. But your attempts to curb your desires had been in vain something about his voice, about the memories of his hand on your chin, his body so close to you, his smell had caused you to leak arousal into your underwear. Your labia felt swollen against the tight cotton and you were ashamed to be kneeling in church like this, your face was burning much like you would be if you were to be struck down dead right now. You could hear him approaching, speaking to each parishioner as he placed the body of Christ on their tongue and blessed them. You would have to look up at him shortly, your eyes would have to meet his, you would have to take in that face that had been haunting you while he spoke his blessing to you. He was on the person to your right and now was the time to tilt your head up, you almost didn’t but as he moved over, you knew your place as a good Catholic and you looked up at your priest. 

He was just as entrancing as he always had been, in off white vestments with gold stitching, his greying hair pushed back away from his face, a little long in the back, curling around his neck and his eyes, dark and hungry, staring down at you. Your vagina clenched around nothing and you burned with shame and the memory of his big hand at your chin and jaw. 

Your eyes locked onto his and his gaze held yours, refusing to let you go, there was no choice in the matter, you would gaze up into his eyes until the end of time if he wanted it. He held the body of Christ out to you, your head upturned. At the time you didn’t understand just how reverent you looked, all you could think of was him and the vague worry that your juices might have been dripping down your leg. 

“The body of Christ,” Father Miller’s voice changed ever so slightly when he spoke the words to you. You had been listening the whole time you had been kneeling and now his voice had lost the monotone pitch he had had. There was a lilt in his voice that was only for you. 

“Amen,” You said, you opened your mouth, your tongue very slightly pushed out, resting on the edge of your bottom lip, your eyes still captured in his gaze. Something blazed there, behind his eyes and despite the heat in your cheeks and the heat that was making your wet and swollen vulva pulse with a need you had never felt before, that familiar shiver crawled up your spine. Joel placed the body of Christ on your tongue and maybe you imagined it, maybe it was a split second that felt like it stretched into eternity but you could have sworn the tip of his finger grazed the side of your tongue as he took his hand away. That tiniest touch of his thick, calloused finger against an intimate and sensitive part of yourself made your brow briefly furrow and that deep clench of your sex to take over your body again. You closed your mouth around the wafer that you believed to be the actual flesh of your Savior and your gaze remained on the man granting you that sacrament. You watched his lip twitch ever so slightly as, without taking those dark, burning brown eyes form yours, he took the chalice he was handed and held it before you. 

“The blood of Christ,” he said, you could hear that lilt again, like he was mocking not only you but God himself as he held that chalice out. 

“Amen,” you said and he brought the chalice to your mouth, tilting it back while cupping his hand under your chin in case it spilled over. The proximity of his hand to your chin buzzed something in you. Your eyes remained on him and his eyebrows raised slightly as he fed you the Blood of Christ. When he removed the chalice from your lips, a droplet of the wine dribbled out of the corner of your mouth. You were about to reach up and wipe it when his thumb beat you to it. In one quick motion, he swiped it away, the calloused thumb leaving a trail of heat on your face. You felt him tear his eyes away from you like a punch to the gut and you knew you had to continue on. You made the sign of the cross on yourself, collected every ounce of strength you had and got up from the altar rail. You could feel your slick soaking your underwear, and wetting your thighs as you walked. You knew you had to beg for forgiveness and the only place to do that was Confession. 

+

You knew you had to confess. You hadn’t been able to resist your carnal desires, once you had returned to your apartment after mass on Sunday you had tried your hardest to relieve that mounting pressure between your thighs. You had delicately stroked your folds and experimented with pace and tried to find a rhythm that would relieve you but as if as punishment, you couldn’t. Now, you needed to confess and to make matters worse, the only person you could confess to was Father Miller. You came to confession on a Friday night after school had let out. The hours for confession were set and you knew he would be in the confessional, waiting for perishoners.

Friday was usually silent at the church, the staff had left for the weekend and most people didn’t confess on a Friday. You walked into the church  and down the side aisle to where the confessional was. It was tucked into the side aisle just in front of the very altar rail you had knelt at and drenched your underwear earlier in the week. Your cheeks were bright red as you stepped into the booth and knelt down in front of the partition, there was a screen between you and him but you knew he was there. The smell of him lingered all around you. Tobacco, mint and the acrid metallic scent…what could that be? If you had to guess you’d say gunpowder but that made no sense to you. Your body reacted to his scent as if you were being touched by him again, your body clenched and your heart skipped a beat. 

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was…” You actually had to think about it for a moment, you had confessed at your church in college but that was over a year ago…was that the last time you had confessed? “Over a year ago,” You mumbled. You paused, unsure if you should just start or if he would say something else. 

“What are your sins, Cherub?” He knew it was you. He’d never say that to someone else. It would have been, “My child”. But no, cherub. You were taken aback by this breach in protocol and you didn’t speak for so long he cleared his throat, “We ain’t gettin’ any younger.” He said. “And your sins aint any closer to absolved,” You needed to speak and speak now, to get all this off of your chest so you could lay it to rest and forget it. 

“I’ve…been plagued with unholy desires, Father.” You said. You could hear him shift in the box next to you and you leaned your head forward, your forehead pressed to the screen separating you. “I’ve been having these intense…” Embarrassment made your cheeks flush, you fiddled with the hem of the skirt you wore today and you knew you had to keep going, “Sexual fantasies,” You blurted it out and you heard him let out a long, slow breath. “I can’t stop them but the thoughts are so intense…and wrong,” You said. You listened to his breathing while your own breathing quickened because the heady scent of him was doing something to you again. Your knees were aching from where they were pressed into the kneeler and your whole body felt tight and tense. 

“You been actin’ on these…fantasies?” He asked. Acting on them? Did an aborted masturbation attempt count as acting on them? In the eyes of the Lord, yes. You needed to admit it to him. 

“Yes, Father…I…I believe I have.” You said it even as you could feel that blooming, dripping heat fill your belly. 

“You believe you have, huh?” He asked, that mocking lilt colored his voice and another shiver crawled up your spine. While the shiver might have been caused by something unholy, it certainly was a good shiver. 

“I’ve touched myself because of these fantasies,” You admitted softly, your fingers still twisting the end of your skirt. “I was never able to…finish but it’s still a sin.” You told him taking a deep breath through your nose, you wondered if he was leaning in towards the screen too. You pulled your head back to look,  you could see bits of him through the latticed wood that created the screen that was supposedly there to protect anonymity.  

“Yea, Cherub, it sure is a sin.” He spoke and the words, his voice was like an injection of heat straight to your core. You had already practically leaked all over the altar rails at communion but now you were going to drip down your thighs in confession. “And I know what your penance should be,” he said. You let out a relieved breath, maybe if you did the penance you would be absolved and God would take the lust from your body. 

“Yes, Father. What should I do?” You asked. You heard Joel lean forward now, his voice was closer to the screen and the seat he was on creaked slightly. 

“You gotta reach your fingers under your skirt and touch yourself again, right here, right now.” His low voice sounded even more gravely than usual and the words burned through you. 

“F-Father?” You questioned, unsure if this could be possible. Your brain was already addled with lust, and this felt wrong but the temptation was so strong. 

“The only way we can absolve you of these sins is to complete them.” He insisted and you knew how wrong he was. Those shivers you felt were warnings of him. But how could you resist this? His voice was like a drug and that scent and the way you remembered the feeling of his fingers on your jaw, the pad of his thumb on your chin at communion, the ridge of his finger on the side of your tongue. “I want you to tell me just how wet you are, kneeling there before God,” Joel’s voice came to you through your lust filled fog and before you could think further you reached your hand up under your skirt and into your underwear. Your fingers immediately slipped over your soaked lips and you let out a gasp at the realization you had been soaking your underwear during the entirety of the confession. 

“Father, it’s…so wet.” You gasped, you heard movement again from his side of the confessional, the rustle of clothing and maybe the clinking of a belt being adjusted. 

“Get those knees nice and wide and stroke your lips for me,” Father Miller said, and you knew he was close to you leaned into the wood lattice screen. You could practically feel his breath. You did as you were told, kneeling a little wider and stroking your lips. You let out a squeak of pleasure, “Nice n’ slow, darlin’” His voice floated through the screen and your fingers slowly, painfully slow stroked along your puffy lips. 

“Oh God,” The words were ripped from you as the tips of your delicate fingers grazed your clitorus and your whole body throbbed. 

“Jus’ your lips, pretty girl, don’t touch that clit of yours.” The filth words coming from your priest's mouth only spurred you on. You wanted to ignore him and touch your clit again, but how had he known you had touched it in the first place? “Stroke down to your hole, cherub,” it was horribly disgusting and lewd to hear him talk like that but it still stoked a terrible fire inside you. You reached your hand farther down, sinking your butt back towards your feet as you knelt. Your finger found your entrance, the source of your wetness and you found yourself longing to push your finger into yourself. As if he heard your very thought Joel chuckled,

“Dont even think about fingerin’ yourself, little girl.” He said. A moan of desperation that matched any of the vulgarity he had spewed to you fell from your lips. “Tell me, cherub, is that a virgin cunt you’ve got over there? Or is there somethin’ else you need to be confessin’ to your Father?” he asked. Your fingers were tracing a circle around your soaked hole, trying to listen to him and not let your finger enter your body. 

“I’m a virgin, Father. Please…” You didn’t know what you were asking for with that please but it felt appropriate. Once you said that, there was a rush of movement and then the door to your side of the confessional was thrown open and Father Miller stood in front of you. You nearly toppled over from where you were kneeling, your hand still shoved into  your underwear.  He made a tsking sound, 

“Oh my little Virgin Mary,” his voice crawled up your spine like the shiver. “I’ve always known you were my good girl,” He reached down to where you were kneeling and wrapped his arm around your upper arm, pulling you up to stand. You gasped and he pulled you out of the confessional, his body moving your weight like it was nothing. His hand tightened on your arm as he pulled you into his body and then it dropped to around your waist and his mouth was on yours, kissing you. It was anything but a chaste kiss, his tongue lavished your mouth, circling yours while his arms wrapped around your waist keeping you locked against his broad, strong body.  When he pulled away from you, you were gasping for breath and he let out a dark chuckle

“Oh, I am going to eat you up, Cherub.” It was a threat, but it made you pulse with need. Joel took your upper arms in his hands again, fingers digging in, “Let’s pray,” he said and he started to pull you over a few feet to the altar rail. In a sharp movement he pushed you down, bent at the waist over the rail, your feet pressed into the kneeler, you squealed in surprise, 

“Father!” You managed to squeak out.

“Let’s see this pretty cunt that’s causin’ you such problems, sweetheart.” Joel growled and with one hand shoved your skirt up and then ripped your undies down, exposing your soaked pussy to him. You whimper in shame and embarrassment. You were so close to the holy altar, staring up at the crucifix while your most private part was exposed to Father Joel Miller. He let out a laugh, as his hand came up to your ass, he grabbed the meat of it, digging his fingers in and spreading it enough to expose more of your pussy to him. 

“Ohhh there she is,” He breathed, he let out a low whistle, “So swollen, so wet.” The fingers of his other hand stroked down your wet lips and in response you spread your legs a little more. “Is that what you want, Cherub?” he asked. You nodded vigorously, completely lost in lust. Joel stroked along your lips up to your clit and he started to flick slow circles around it. Your moans started to echo as he worked you up. “That’s it, enjoy that sin, darlin,” he breathed, leaning over your back to whisper into your ear. You could feel his black button up pressed into your back while his fingers continued to circle around your clit, sending burning pleasure coursing through you. 

“P-please!” You begged, letting yourself go completely to the need for more. “God! Please!” You cried. 

“Please, what?” Joel asked into your ear, you could feel his stubble and mustache against your ear. His scent washed over you, intoxicating you further. 

“Please, I want you inside of me, Father!” You cried, you hadn’t even realized that was what you would say when you opened your mouth but it came tumbling out anyway. His fingers moved from your clit to your entrance where you were clenching on nothing, your cunt was begging for it regardless of what you said. His middle finger circled around your hole, not entering you but noticing how tight you were. Joel pulled back enough to look down at your pussy again, 

“You want me inside of your virgin pussy?” He asked, You nodded before letting your head hang down in shame, the shame of how much you needed it and how much you were willing to sacrifice for it. The temptation of him had been too much. You could feel his eyes on your fluttering sex while he started to ease his finger inside of you. He rocked his finger inside of you and you pressed yourself back against him. 

“Oh cherub, I can see that you’re a virgin.” He said, those greedy, dark eyes on you, still, even now, sending shivers up your spine. His finger had barely made it halfway inside of you when he tugged his finger away. You gasped at the loss and pressed yourself back towards him. 

“Father! No! Please!” You whined, wiggling your hips. 

“If your virginity is gunna be mine, I sure as hell am gunna take it with my cock.” Joel’s molten voice sizzled inside of you and the realization washed over you that you weren’t going to try to stop him, and you were about to be filled with his cock right here in the middle of the church. You heard the buckle of his belt and the shift of clothes, still leaned over the altar railing, legs spread wide, ready to for him to fully know you. 

Joel watched your pussy as he notched his thick cock against your hole, your inner lips were parting for him waiting for your cunt to accept him. 

“Joel,” you gasped his name for the first time as you fully understood what was about to happen. “Is it going to hurt?”You asked. 

“Well it ain’t goin’ to be a walk in the park at first, Cherub.” He said, and you could feel how thick his cock head felt at your entrance“But I think she’ll open up for me,” his voice had that mocking lilt to it again. Before you could say anything else he had started to push into you and the stretch was so much that the breath was completely knocked out of you. You lurched forward as his hips rocked into you. 

“Oh, that looks so good…pretty cunt splittin’ open for me.” He said and you knew he was watching the place where your bodies connected. He pressed himself forward again, forcing his way inside of you, making a spot for his thick cock in your tight hole. You let out a whine and he gripped your hips tugging you back more. “Atta girl, you’re takin’ my cock so well. This pussy was made for me, wasn’t it?” he asked and all you could manage was a garbled moan in response. It did hurt some as he continued to ease himself in inch by thick inch but you were also completely drenched with slick that it was decently quick work to ease you open. 

“Father! Oh, its…so big!” You pressed your hips back, hoping to open yourself more to him. When he was fully sheathed inside of you, he was still for so long that you felt like you might go crazy with the need for friction. “Please…father…fuck me.” You gasped and that seemed to spur Joel on, he started to pull his cock back before shoving it back in, setting a brutal pace. Joels breath started to grow ragged with his own pleasure,

“Is that what you want, little girl?” He asked as his hips snapped forward to fill you over and over. “You want my cock to fuck you?” He asked. You nodded, still dazed. 

“I wanna hear you, Cherub. Confess to me, what do you want?” Joel bent forward over you, one hand snaking around you and grabbing your throat , fingers pressing into your jaw.  You moaned, unable to form a proper sentence as he pulled you back by your neck, making you look up at the altar in front of you. “Come on, let‘s hear that confession,” he said as his cock ruthlessly pummeled against your cervix, splitting you open more and more with each thrust. His other hand, the one not forcing you to look at the image of your savior, trailed down your belly and underneath your skirt. His middle finger found your clit, stroking it in those quick, flicking circles. Your body tensed against the feeling, tightening around his cock. He groaned into your cheek while he held you up with his hand on your neck. “Come on, tell me you want me to fuck your pretty little cunt.” He said. 

“Yes, yes, yes!” You cried, your eyes blurring with tears as you admitted it in front of him, and God all the same. “Yes, I want your cock to fuck me and I want to come!” You cried. 

“You want to come?” He asked, “Is that it, Cherub? You wanna come while confessin’ your sins right here in front of the holy altar?” his voice was strained and you could feel his thrusts becoming messier, harder as he chased his own orgasm. 

“Yes! Father! Please!” his finger stroked across your clit. 

“Come on my cock, Cherub. Let go for me,” He spoke the word into her cheek, your head turned to the side, leaning back into him. Your orgasm burst over you like white light, heat and shivers down your spine. He stroked your clit through it while his hips pumped his thick cock in and out of you, pulling mewls of pleasure out of. Your eyes opened and you watched the statue of the Virgin Mary while his cock pummeled your cervix and he released ropes of his hot spend inside of you. He groaned into your cheek, your body still back against him. Joel’s teeth caught your jaw, biting you briefly. 

As your breathing settled a little, Father Joel Miller pulled himself out of you. You felt his eyes on your completely destroyed pussy and his fingers briefly stroked at your entrance, gathering a generous amount of his sticky come onto his fingers before he lifted your underwear for you, covering you again. 

“Turn around, Cherub.” he instructed and you did, your face burning with the shame of what had just happened. Joel grabbed your jaw with one of his hands, “Open,” he said and you did what you were told, your tongue pressed out just a tiny bit, resting against your bottom lip. He brought the finger coated in his come that had been dripping out of you to your tongue and swiped across it. The salty, heady taste mixed with the scent of Father Joel Miller, Tobacco, mint, fresh sweat and the acrid burning metallic gunpowder smell. Shivers ran up and down your spine as you stood in front of the holy altar, bleary eyed and red cheeked. 

“God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

[bweeeb]

PUPPY EYES

Synopsis: When Pedro doesn't take you to the awards ceremony for his new movie, your relationship starts to go downhill with the thought that maybe you're too young to give him everything he needs.

Warnings: nothing major, angst, couple with problems, Pedro and you are 26 years apart.

Career, projects, new movies, memories, and that topic that always left you unsure—was it negative or positive anticipation when people brought up relationships?

It wasn’t news to anyone that five months ago, when you and Pedro made it official that you’d been secretly seeing each other for a year, people started digging into every little detail. And a few months ago, the age difference between you two didn’t bother anyone in your social circle. Both of you were adults who knew exactly what you were doing with your lives.

Even your parents, who had initially been surprised by the man 26 years older than you, eventually came to accept your choice. So it shouldn’t bother you or anyone else anymore.

"So, I don’t think you’ve ever openly talked about your relationship with Pedro Pascal after making it official. Is it okay if we discuss it?"

The podcast host smiled at you, and you let out an embarrassed laugh, shrugging.

"Why not?"

"How did you two meet?"

"We worked on the same movie, so we were constantly together on set. One thing led to another."

"And you never thought, like, ‘Wow, he’s way too old for me,’ since there’s a significant age gap?"

"Twenty-six years, isn’t it?" Another host interrupted.

"Didn’t he say in an interview that he wouldn’t date anyone with more than a 20-year age difference? Doesn’t that make you curious about what changed?"

"Well, when we met, I didn’t think much about it, and I don’t think he did either. Yes, he mentioned that he wouldn’t date someone with a 20-year age gap. But I’ve always had a thing for DILFs, and he’s definitely one. One thing led to another, without either of us realizing it."

Your cheeks flushed as you spoke honestly, your eyes briefly catching your publicist’s approving thumbs-up from behind the glass.

"I think it’s much more about connection than anything tangible, you know? Our age difference is almost unnoticeable in our day-to-day life now."

"Pedro is, what, around 50 years old? Let’s not pretend it’s entirely unnoticeable." One of them chuckled, and you narrowed your eyes, frustrated at how your words were twisted.

"You’re young, clearly with the body of a 23-year-old, while he’s middle-aged. I think people are just curious about what made you stay." The other one chimed in, leaning toward the mic. You smiled politely, glancing between the camera and the hosts.

"Maybe the real question is what makes him stay. He had a firm opinion, and suddenly, it changed. Pedro has the purest and most beautiful soul in the world. He laughs at his own dad jokes, he shows me things I’d never imagined because he’s from 1975, and he’s a man with a capital M who treats me like the last rose petal in the universe. So, honestly, if he ever agrees to do an interview with you, maybe you should ask him what makes him stay.

"After the podcast aired, what you thought would be a calm discussion turned into a social media battleground. People twisted your words and intentions.

"A man taking care of a child—what nonsense."

"Really, ask him why he stays because she’s unbearable."

"Did she call his jokes ‘dad jokes’? Who does that to their boyfriend? RUN, PEDRO!"

"She’s just after his money."

"The most boring woman in the world is with the hottest man alive. How does that even happen?"

"She has nothing to offer him. Relax, ladies, it won’t last three more months."

"Dakota Johnson seemed interested in him; I wouldn’t be surprised if he ditches this corn husk for her."

"If I knew he was into younger women, I’d have listed a hundred better options than Y/N."

"Wait, guys—he didn’t even take her to the Gladiator premiere. How serious do you think this is?"

It was exhausting. Even though you avoided reading the comments, they popped up everywhere, and all the therapy you’d done to maintain a stable mental health seemed to be slipping through your fingers. But Pedro couldn’t know, so you plastered on a sweet smile whenever you saw him, even as doubts began to creep in.

Maybe you really were the worst option for him. Maybe someone older, with similar experiences, would be better. Someone more mature, less bubbly and silly.Sitting in the car, you stared blankly out the window as Pedro talked about the Gladiator premiere—the one you hadn’t attended because you weren’t invited.

"Hey, are you okay?" It wasn’t that you weren’t listening. You just didn’t have much to say, so you let him keep talking.

"Yeah, I’m fine. Go on."

Your smile didn’t falter, and you silently thanked yourself for being a good actress.

"No, you’re not fine. What’s wrong?"

"Of course I am. It must’ve been surreal, babe. Even Dakota Johnson was there, right?"

"Yeah, but what’s wrong with you?" His eyes left the road momentarily to glance at you. You shook your head.

"Nothing. You’re just imagining things." You leaned over, cupped his face in your hands, and pressed a kiss to his lips before pulling away.

"Eyes on the road, old man."

"Okay, but I thought I was your daddy."

He exaggeratedly rolled his eyes as if offended. You loved that about him—the way he was so expressive and dramatic, some might call it embarrassing, but you found it endlessly entertaining.

"You know when you’re my daddy," you said with a mischievous smile, swallowing the rising bitterness in your throat. That night was the last time you slept at his place. Over the following days, you insisted on being dropped off at home, and Pedro didn’t argue. He simply observed your strange behavior.

At first, he thought you might be pregnant and unsure about what to do. But then he remembered you weren’t the type to hide something like that. He considered that maybe you were overwhelmed with your new projects, but you usually loved talking about them. And then, his thoughts landed on your relationship. Had he done something wrong? He couldn’t pinpoint anything.

Five days later, the two of you were at a dinner with friends. Everything was going well until it wasn’t.

"Hey, Y/N, why didn’t I see you at the premiere? I thought I’d catch a glimpse of you in a glorious dress," Lux, Pedro’s sister, asked.

Your cheeks burned, and your heart raced with nervous discomfort. Were you supposed to admit you hadn’t been invited? No. Your mom had taught you better than that.

"I…" A nervous laugh escaped your lips as you shifted uncomfortably in your chair. You didn’t dare look at Pedro beside you, though you could feel his guilty puppy-dog eyes on you. You wouldn’t give in.

"I had some things tied up with the script for the movie. It was a hectic week."

In reality, the script had been finalized, and even if the writer had faced complications, you’d have found time to support your boyfriend and contribute new ideas to the director.

"Ah, really? What a shame. I hope everything’s okay now," Lux said.

"Oh, it’s all sorted," you replied, forcing a smile.Your smile faltered briefly when Pedro’s hand tried to find yours under the table. Clearing your throat, you stood up, announcing that you needed to use the restroom.When you returned, Pedro was chatting with one of his friends, and you were grateful he was too preoccupied to bring up the earlier conversation.

"Wow, did you do something with your hair? It looks blonder, or is it just me?" Hazel, one of Pedro’s friends’ girlfriends, asked politely.

"Yeah, I did. Amelia’s amazing," you replied.

"Oh my gosh, give me her number, please. I need something this stunning."

"Of course, I’ll even book you an appointment if you want."

"It’s impressive how an older man managed to snag someone as beautiful and sweet as you," Lux teased. Normally, you would’ve laughed it off, but everything felt different that night. You chuckled falsely, smiling as you’d been doing all week.

"Oh, come on, stop that," Pedro said, sounding uneasy. He could sense your odd mood.Of course, you were acting strange.

Everything had been strange lately.

Later, in the car, your gaze rested on your hands in your lap while you felt Pedro’s eyes boring into the side of your face.

"Honey—"

"If we could not talk about this now, I’d be much happier. Can you just take me home?"

"You know I want to—"

"Pedro."You turned to him, tired of pretending. Your voice was tense, and he immediately understood how serious it was. You never called him by his name. "Stop." Your tone wasn’t angry or annoyed, just lifeless. That terrified him. Women didn’t usually scare him. At nearly 50 years old, he thought he’d learned to handle these situations.

"I’m sorry, okay."

His gaze returned to the road, while you looked out the window, waiting to get home.

As you were arriving, you realized he wasn't taking you to your house but to his instead. Closing your eyes, you let out a sigh and covered your face with both hands.

"What are you doing?" The words came out muffled as you felt him slow down.

"Going home."

"This is the way to your house."

"My house is your house, darling."

"You know what I mean," you whispered, exhausted.

"I thought you didn’t want to go. That it would be too much pressure for you, that... that you wouldn’t want people talking."

You heard him lament, and biting your lip, you sniffled. You tried hard not to act childish in the situation, looking up and taking a deep breath, reminding yourself not to let the tears fall.

"I know," was all you managed to reply before your voice broke.

"I... I just need to think for a bit."

"Think... right. Think about what?"

"Can you please take me home?" Pedro nodded at that and drove to your building. For the first time, he felt a strange haze between the two of you.

"Thank you." Even in the awkwardness, there you were, sweet as ever. Pedro could never deny how much he appreciated that about you—the way you always thanked everyone for everything. You were so pure. "Anytime." You opened the car door and stepped out, but before you entered the building, Pedro got out and called after you.

"I'm sorry. And I love you." That’s what he said before you turned to look at him with sad eyes—the same expression you wore when you thought he had forgotten to pick you up for a date, only to find out he was planning a surprise trip to Chile.That night, Pedro went home with his tail between his legs. When Lux called him in the morning, he couldn’t have felt worse.

"You look like one of the infected from The Last of Us. Gross."Lux teased as Pedro rubbed his face with his left hand."What do you want?"

"Wow. Rude."

"Sorry, I didn’t sleep. Just tell me why you’re calling me at six in the morning."

"I was thinking about how you said Y/N was acting strange, and I agree. Last night, she was quieter than usual. Pero luego empecé a preguntarme: ¿la invitaste al estreno? Porque se puso muy rara después de que lo mencioné y estaba revisando los comentarios..." ( But then I started wondering—did you invite her to the premiere? Because she got all weird after I brought it up, and I was checking the comments...)

"Ya te dije que no revises los comentarios. La gente está loca". (I already told you not to check the comments. People are insane.)

Pedro rolled his eyes, sighed, and collapsed onto the couch, exhausted. You and Pedro had talked about ignoring online negativity countless times. Neither of you usually cared about it. You weren’t starting now, were you?

"Lo sé, lo sé, pero se están portando fatal con ella. Y al no invitarla, la gente pensó que la estaban dejando de lado". ( I know, I know, but they’re being awful to her. And not inviting her made people think you were sidelining her.)

Lux sounded worried, almost angry.

"Eso es ridículo. Yo nunca haría algo así. Ella lo sabe. "(That’s ridiculous. I’d never do that—she knows that.)

"La compararon con Dakota Johnson. No es justo, son completamente diferentes. Dijeron que te cansarías de la 'niña'. Sabemos que es más madura que la mayoría de las mujeres, pero aún es joven". ( They compared her to Dakota Johnson. It’s not even fair—they’re completely different. They said you’ll get tired of the ‘kid.’ We know she’s more mature than most women, but she’s still young. )

Pedro propped his elbows on his knees and sighed. You had never acted immaturely. You never made rash decisions or threw tantrums over small things. You never picked fights or complained about work or friends. People didn’t know anything about your relationship—how could they?

"¿Crees que está preocupada? "(Do you think she’s worried)

"La mujer está intentando mantener la compostura y alejarse antes de que la abandones, como todos han estado diciendo". (The woman’s trying to hold herself together and pulling away before you ditch her like everyone’s been saying.)

Lux sighed and continued,

"Deberías haber escuchado cómo habló de ti en ese podcast. Nadie más sería así, no como ella. Haz algo. ( You should’ve heard how she talked about you on that podcast. No one else would be like that—not like her. Do something. )

Fuck. Pedro thought. He’d be stuck working all day, knowing you were likely asleep now. As the day went on, you ignored his missed calls. Not as an act of immaturity but because you needed personal space. You planned to talk to him eventually, but your phone felt like a weight you couldn’t bear. Instead, you threw yourself into work, ensuring every detail was perfect.Later, your group decided to go out for dinner, and you joined to keep your mind occupied. You loved them all but remained mostly a listener. Exhausted from a sleepless night, you struggled to follow the conversation, though you smiled at their stories.After dinner, you excused yourself to the restroom. As you washed your hands, you overheard two women talking in mocking tones.

"Do you think it’s a PR stunt?"

You frowned, listening as the other responded,

"It must be. I mean, it’s all over the news, and she’s playing the sad little girl role."

"Yeah, right? He used to call someone 25 a kid, and now he’s with a 23-year-old? Ridiculous."

"Did you see the photo of him with Dakota at the bar?"

"What? When?"

"Today, about an hour ago. She was kissing his cheek, and even if it’s for the movie, I doubt it. They weren’t even working."

"Think he’ll trade her in?"

"She won’t last ten days."

You grabbed your phone and opened Twitter. The first thing you saw was the photo of him and Dakota. He had that drunken smile on his face as she wrapped her arms around his neck. You weren’t the jealous type, fully aware of how PR worked in Hollywood, but it still stung.You washed your hands, turned to face them, and said,

"At least I’m more than a nameless extra without a single line. The only roles your venomous tongues will land you are in adult films, and not the Pearl kind—cheap, disgusting ones. Have a good night.

"With that, you left, hailed a cab, and went home. Fighting back tears, you repeated to yourself, Don’t cry. It’s just a picture. You ignored him all day, so stop acting like this.But for the first time, you cried over something like this.

Your head ached, and with the tip of your nose red, you picked up the phone and called him—without thinking too much, without wrestling with your thoughts. You just did what you felt needed to be done.The first call went straight to voicemail, and even though the thought of not wanting to humiliate yourself for him crossed your mind, you ignored it, knowing you were the one who had lost ground first. On the second call, your phone was answered, and the muffled sound made you swallow hard—he was out of the house.

“Hey.”

Your voice came out low, and you heard some murmurs on the other side, blending with loud conversation.

“Hello?”

A woman’s voice called from the other side, and you grimaced. “Uh, hi. Is Pedro there?”

“Uh, he’s kind of busy right now,” she said.

“Busy…” you repeated softly. “Who are you?”

“Carly.”

Carly? Who the hell is Carly? you thought immediately.

“Then tell him I called, Carly.”

“And you are…?” The mocking tone in her voice irritated you, and your expression was far from pleasant.

“A friend. Tell him a friend called.”

“Great.” She hung up without saying anything else, and you wrapped yourself in your own cocoon of blankets that didn’t warm you like Pedro did.Suits was playing on TV while you avoided going to bed, eventually falling asleep without even realizing it. Around 3 a.m., frantic knocks on your door startled you awake, making you look warily down the hallway. The doormen usually informed you of anyone coming to your floor.

Cautiously, you peeked through the peephole and saw him there, rubbing his face with his two hands, five times bigger than yours. You stopped, stepped back from the door, and sighed before opening it. Once you unlocked the door’s security latch, you looked at him and almost closed it again upon seeing your reflection, still wearing his shirt.

“It’s late. What are you doing here?” Your voice came out softly, and you saw Pedro stammer as he raised his hand in a nervous tic.

“A friend?”

“What?”

“Why did you say you were just a friend, sweetheart?” Pedro asked, stepping forward. You didn’t step back, only shrugged and gave a disheartened smile

.“She said you were busy. I thought it would be more… convenient than saying something else.”

“You’re something else. You’re my girlfriend. And my fiancée. And my wife. And I don’t care if you want to be the mother of my kids when I’m a hundred years old.”

He’s so drunk, you thought.

“How much tequila did you drink, Pedro?”

“The whole bottle.” He laughed, moving closer and gently touching your face. He’d always been gentle; being drunk didn’t change that.

“Please don’t tell me you’re breaking up with me.”

“I won’t say anything to you while you reek of cheap booze and cheap women.” You closed the door behind him and stepped away, heading to the hallway and your closet to grab a towel and clean clothes for him.

“Take a shower. If you sober up, we’ll talk.”

Pedro knew what you were thinking—that he’d gotten mad, drunk with his friends, and gone out with women named Carly. But he hadn’t done anything other than stare at the karaoke machine, hating every second he wasn’t there to mock what he was hearing.

“Everything’s cheap,” he laughed, following you.

“You know what isn’t cheap, Pedro? My patience. I haven’t slept well in over a week, and now it’s almost four in the morning, which means it’s been twenty minutes since you showed up at my door, and I don’t know why the hell you’re not naked yet.”

Your words left your mouth, and Pedro smiled at you.

“One day without you, and I forget how hot you are when you’re bossy and sleepy,” he slurred, making you laugh softly as you turned on the shower and pushed him into the bathroom.

“Don’t fall in there, please.”

Fifteen minutes after you pushed him inside, your eyes were heavy, and the strange way your body associated his presence with a different kind of rest annoyed you. Without realizing it, you fell asleep on the couch, wrapped in your blanket. It was as if your body said":

— Oh, it’s okay; Pedro’s home, so we’re safe,— but was your heart safe?When he saw you asleep there, the tequila had only left him dizzy—nothing a cold shower couldn’t fix. He approached and carried you to your room without thinking twice, whispering as he looked at your face:

“I’m so sorry, my preatty little thing.”

He laid you on the bed, and as he was about to leave, he heard you murmur:

“Stay. Please.”

Without hesitation, he lay beside you, pulling you against his chest and wrapping you both in a cocoon where it was just the two of you.

“Have you ever thought that maybe I’m not the right person for you?” you murmured, burying your head in his neck and feeling his hands trail up your back.

“Have you ever thought that maybe I’m not the right person for you, sweetheart?” he emphasized, and you sighed.

“I’m scared of losing you when you realize I’m too young, too naïve, and haven’t even experienced half of what you have.”

“I don’t even know why you’re thinking that. I’m the one who’s old. You’re perfect, intelligent, hot, and extremely talented—a young woman who fell into the arms of an old man like me.”

“Yeah, but I think maybe one day you’ll want someone your own age, someone like Sarah or any of your exes. I think it’s okay if you get bored of me, start feeling ashamed, and—”

“Stop. Stop that.” Pedro cupped your face, pulling it from his neck and making you look into his eyes. Your hands rested on his chest as you stared at him, and with a disheartened smile, Pedro caressed your face, clearly upset. When had your relationship reached such a fragile state?

“I didn’t take you to the premiere because the press is cruel. They’d talk about you, probably reinforce the rumors, and talk about me—call me a disgusting creep. I was going to take you, but all of our advisors told me not to risk exposing you in a bad light. I… I would never feel ashamed of you, for God’s sake. Look at you. A woman of any age wouldn’t hold a candle to you in a million years.”

Sniffling, you climbed onto his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck. Pedro sat on the bed, hugging you back, his hand resting gently on your waist.

“You don’t need to worry about anything. Whatever was written about you was a lie. God, I don’t think I even know how to live without you by my side anymore.”

You laughed, and a smile appeared on his lips.

“You don’t need to worry either. Other men lost their appeal the moment you wanted me.”

“That’s good, sweetheart.”

His hand traveled to the back of your neck, his large fingers running through your hair.

“And who was Carly?”

“A friend of the group.”

" And why did she have your cell phone?"

" It stayed on the table because I focused on looking at it for five to five minutes waiting for you to send me a message. "

“And the photo?”

He knew what you were referring to, and when he took it, he hadn’t expected it to reach you before you two made up—if you made up.

“It was to promote the movie, sweetheart. Dakota’s engaged.”

He brushed your hair out of your face, tucking it behind your ear.

“Hmm, alright.” You looked at him, tracing your fingers from his hair to his beard until they stopped at his mustache.

“Stop looking at me with those puppy-dog eyes. It makes you irresistible.”

“Like this?”

He did it again, and you laughed, kissing his lips immediately after.

“Mm-hmm, like that.”

You murmured against his lips as he smiled at you, and you whispered,

“I love you.”

“I love you more, sweetheart. Just you.”

Pedro pulled you close, laying you back against the soft mattress, kissing you as if it were the last moment of your lives. At least, that’s what both of you hoped.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

I apologize if there are any mistakes in this writing. I didn't proofread it with the best eyes.

Requests are open

[nomie-11]

Grey

masterlist!

synopsis: you love letting vi play with your hair, but all semblance of happiness is shattered when she finds a grey hair

pairings: vi x reader

Softly sighing, you tightened your arms around her waist, your head resting gently against her chest. Each breath she took, each beat of her heart echoed in your mind, lulling your thoughts and calming your mind as you let her body heat penetrate through the thin pajamas you both adorned. You loved laying like this—laying on top of her, her hands gently threading through your hair, the only sound in the room the soft breaths from her lips. 

Her fingertips grazed your scalp, slow and soothing, as if she knew exactly how to untangle the stress woven into your thoughts. You felt her shift slightly beneath you, her lips brushing against your temple in a lazy, half-asleep gesture of affection. 

“You’ve got something here,” she mumbled, her voice still heavy with sleep. Her fingers paused at the crown of your head, twirling a strand of hair. “Huh.” 

“What?” you asked, not moving from your spot, your voice muffled against your chest. You didn’t think much of it. It was probably just another excuse for her to tease you—she loved finding little quirks about you to point out. 

“It’s grey.” 

You froze. 

“Grey?” you repeated, lifting your head to meet her gaze. 

“Mm-hmm.” her lips twitched into a lopsided grin as she held the strand out for you to see. “Right here. Just one, though. I think it’s cute.” 

“Cute?” you shot up, your heart racing as you scrambled off her lap and into a seated position. You tugged your hair forward, trying to catch a glimpse of this so-called intruder in the strands framing your face. “I have a grey hair!?”

“Relax, babe,” Vi’s chuckle followed you as she leaned back on her elbows, thoroughly amused. “You’re overreacting. It’s one hair. We just fought a war, it’s probably from stress or something.” 

“Or something?” Your voice hit an octave you didn’t even know you could reach. “Vi, this is how it starts! One day, it’s one little grey hair, and the next—” You gesture wildly, as though the mere idea of aging was too horrifying to put into words. “I’m old!” 

“Old?” Vi snorted, sitting up on her elbows. She reached for you, but you swatted her hands away as you stood, pacing the room. “Sweetheart, you’re not even thirty. You’re fine.”

“Easy for you to say!” You exclaimed, pointing at her. “You’re Vi. You’re going to be gorgeous forever. You’re the same person who looks perfect even when you’ve just woken up!”

Vi arched a brow, her grin widening as she leaned back again, clearly enjoying the show. “Keep going. I like where this is headed.” 

You groaned, grabbing a pillow from the bed and chucking it at her. She caught it easily, her laugh filling the room. “Don’t laugh at me! This is serious! I’m—” You paused, clutching your chest dramatically. “I’m having a quarter-life crisis.”

That did it. Vi couldn’t hold back, laughing so hard her shoulders shook. “Oh, babe,” she said between giggles, “you’re really something else.” 

“This isn’t funny,” you grumbled, crossing your arms and flopping back onto the bed beside her. You stared at the ceiling, your thoughts racing. “I’m too you for grey hair. What does it mean? Am I stressed more than usual? Is it genetics? Is it—”

“It’s life,” she interrupted, her voice softer now as she rolled onto her side to face you. “It’s hair. It’s not the end of the world, I promise.” 

Her hand found yours, her fingers threading through yours gently. “You’re beautiful,” she said, her tone earnest. “Grey hairs, stress, wrinkles—none of it changes that. If anything, it just means we’ve been through some stuff, you know?” 

You turned your head to look at her, her blue eyes bright with sincerity. “You really mean that?” 

“Of course I do.” She leaned in, pulling you back onto her, pressing a kiss to your temple. “You’re stuck with me, gray hairs and all.” 

You couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips. “You’re such a sap.” 

“And you love it,” she teased, grinning as she reached up to brush your hair behind your ear, her fingers threading back into your hair once more. “Now, let me see if I can find any more.” 

You groaned, burying your face in her shoulder as she laughed, the sound wrapping around you like a blanket. Crisis averted—at least for now. 

If you enjoyed this one shot, please check out my other series!

[impish-baby]

A few glimpses into 'both arms cradle you now' reader's childhood in no particular order

"Why do birds suddenly appear evertime you are near.." The wet tears running down your cheeks are gently brushed away, whatever nightmare plaguing your sleep seems so far away now that your dad is here. "Just like me, they long to be close to you.." Damien hoists you into his arms, still humming that familiar lullaby as he carries you to the kitchen.

"Why do stars fall from the sky every time you walk by.." You're set on top of the counter, Damien ruffling your hair softly before walking over to the fridge to fetch a carton of milk. "Just like me.. they long to be.. close to you.." The warm glow of the stove makes the quiet night more cozy, the shadows along the walls retreating as well as any lingering fear.

You can feel you eyes start to droop, a small yawn leaving your lips making the man chuckle fondly. "One sec, ok? Daddy has some angel milk for you so you don't have anymore bad dreams, then we'll get you tucked back into bed."

-

"Do you want to hold him, sweetie?" Not really, but a nudge to your shoulder has you taking a reluctant step forward anyway. You're not sure how to feel about him, he's your dad's but not your mom's.

Mary scoots over a little so you can climb up on the hospital bed next to her, a tired but kind smile on her face. "Here, it's ok, you just need to make sure you're supporting his head.." She helps guide your arms into the right position, placing the tiny buddle into them, a pair of equally tiny disgruntled blue eyes soon staring up at you.

When you were first told that your stepmom was pregnant, you tried really really hard to just be happy for them. You promise. The sinking dread never went away though, no matter how much you berated yourself for feeling that way.

Babies are a blessing, but the announcement only cemented the fact that the world as you knew it was ending. Your dad isn't just your dad anymore. Even then, he hasn't acted like one to you in a while. Maybe you were just denying the inevitable.

"Ohh, I think he likes you.." Mary's head rests on your shoulder suddenly, distracting you from your sullen thoughts. "See? You're a natural with little ones!"

"He's glaring at me.."

She laughs, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek as she sits up. "No, he's just getting used to the world, darling. He loves you, he knows he has the best older sibling he could ask for."

-

"What's even the point?" You're both supposed to be sleeping even though it isn't a school night, Aunt Lisa is strict when it comes to things like that. What she doesn't know won't hurt her though.

"Because they look cool," Avery shrugs, carful of the fact you're currently snuggled under one of his arms. "And you get bragging points for catching them." You still don't get it, they're the same thing just a different color. "You've watched me play for like an hour, and now you're bored?"

"You were actually doing stuff before.." You huff, "You've been going around in a circle for fifteen minutes."

You scoff at his comment, now filled with spite to actually beat the game. You've barely moved an inch before the battle music plays, a black and purple pumpkaboo greeting you. "Oh, um..

"I

Well, excuse me," Avery sniffs playfully, "You play since I'm not entertaining enough." The console is handed over to you, the older boy simply holding you closer. "I bet you lose the first match you try."

"Huh?" Avery sighs, quickly pouting when he looks back at the screen. "Seriously? Damm, you're lucky." He pokes your cheek, "You catch it for me and I'll buy you some fries tomorrow."

-

"You're so annoying!"

With how hard you hit the ground, you know you're going to bruise. You weren't even talking, you just wanted to hang out with them.

"Seriously, who even wanted you to come over? I sure didn't!" No matter what you do, Lizzie doesn't like you. Doesn't matter if you're as friendly as can be or give her some space, you're always doing something wrong. "You're wasting good air, you know?"

"M' sorry, didn't mean to bother you." You won't cry, you're too old for that. "Liz-"

"You didn't mean to? Yeah, right!" Lizzie scoffs, kicking dirt into your face. Dust immediately stings your eyes. "You're a pest! No wonder everyone calls you bug, you're clingy like a tick, a parasite."

Your feeble attempt to rub the dirt away isn't really helping, you can barely hold your eyes open enough to look up at her. Miles isn't going to do anything to help either, silently supporting his sister.

"No wonder your dad left you! And your mom, she must be insufferable if you're her kid-"

You don't know when you managed to get up on your feet or when you grabbed a handful of Lizzie's hair. On the bright side, it makes her shut up.

"Hey!"

Your dad emerges from the house, miles trailing behind him. Of course.

"What has gotten into you?" You've let the older girl go at this point, she wasn't even crying until he came outside.

"Ow, dad.." Lizzie hides behind Damien, flashing you a smirk. "I wasn't even doing anything and they decided to be mean.."

Any inking of doubt you had evaporates in an instant. You don't have a dad anymore, you haven't in years.

"God.." He crosses his arms, the stern look would have made you wince if you weren't already shaking. "Don't even try to give me any excuses, Miles told me what happened. You can wait out here for your mom to pick you up since you can't behave yourself. I thought you knew better."

-

"Can you at least try to eat half, please?"

Your plate sits almost entirely untouched, having just been picked at over the course of dinner. Your mom's worried frown won't leave her face. "You're still a growing kid, I don't like how many meals you've tried to skip."

"I'm not hungry." You really aren't, there's always a nauseous feeling in your gut these days. "I'll eat a snack later, don't worry, mom."

"Baby.." She pinches the bridge of her nose and you feel a pang of guilt for how stressed she must be. "Please? For mommy? Or at least talk to me about what's going on.. i- it hurts seeing you so sad all the time."

What are you supposed to say to that?

Against your will, there's tears starting to drip down your cheeks. You don't think you've ever seen the women move so fast, her chair clattering to the floor in her rush to go to your side. "Oh, my baby.."

"I- I'm sorry.." For what you don't know, maybe the fact that she's stuck with you. "I- I'm so sorry, mom-"

"Oh, hush.." You're too big for her to carry, you both know, but she still scoops you into her arms. "There's nothing in the world you need to apologize to me for."

You sniffle, tucking your head under her chin. "I- I don't want to see dad anymore.. or.. or hear about him or-"

"Shhh.." She runs a hand through your hair in an attempt to soothe you, "you don't have to, alright? We'll figure it out. If that's what you want, you won't ever have to see him again."

(a/n: some ramblings while I start writing the second part to the series..reader will continue to go through it)

[x-aefx]

i neeeeeed more jim and pam inspired blurbs for billie

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At Your Side - Billie x fem!reader

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Summary: you and Billie attend a meeting together, however you had a long night last night but luckily Billie has a shoulder for you to lay on.

A/N: sorry this took so long but ask and you shall receive 🤍🌚

No warnings

Based on this scene from the office⬇️

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Billie stared down at her hands, moving and twisting the rings on her fingers absentmindedly as her team talked, mostly between themselves about details that weren't particularly important for Billie to know.

She was going on tour for her new album, 'Hit Me Hard and Soft', which meant a lot of meetings. However it was different, this entire tour would be different then her previous ones, because you were going to be with her.

Billie knew immediately she wanted you to be the opening act for her tour, she went straight to you before any member of her team.

Her knee bounced up and down as she tried to stay awake, which was hard but she knew she had to.

Billie hummed a tune in her mind, thinking about future plans in her head as she fiddled with her rings.

She was completely lost in her thoughts, slapped by reality when she felt a weight on her shoulder. She looked down slightly, trying her best not to move too much, and then she realised.

By accident, you had managed to fall asleep, your head falling against Billie's shoulder who sat beside you in the meeting room.

Billie looked down at you, slightly surprised.

You were at the meeting with her since you were going to be the opening act on the tour, and there were a few details Billie's team had to talk you through.

The meeting was nearing its end though, all the important things said and explained, and Billie would answer any questions you had anyway.

She knew you were up all night reading some book you had bought, or finishing a painting you had begun, it was a habit of yours she knew all too well.

She couldn't help but smile down at you, having the feeling of butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She took the time to admire your peaceful expression, how you smiled even in your sleep, how clear and soft your skin looked and the pretty rose colour of your lips and cheeks.

Billie soon realised she enjoyed the feeling of you laying your head on her shoulder, the closeness it brought. It felt as if a butterfly had landed on her shoulder, delicate and gentle. Billie could smell your vanilla perfume and she could feel your hair prickle against her neck, leaving a slight ticklish feeling she managed to ignore.

Her manager and team droned on in murmurs, she found herself not paying attention, her attention solely on you.

Billie found herself smiling without releasing, but once she did she couldn't hide it. She allowed herself to relish in your presence and under your touch.

She looked away from you shyly even if you were asleep and couldn't see. She felt giddy and completely happy, almost like all her other desires had vanished.

Billie bit her bottom lip as she looked down at her lap. She was sure she was blushing. It was a simple act and yet it had completely taken a hold over her.

As she stared down at the floor Billie realised how fast her heart was thumping in her chest, and how she had the urge to stay in this position and not wake you, bask in the feeling of your head on her shoulder.

You weren't big on physical touch, just offering a short and quick hug here and there, or slightly leaning against her when you two walked side by side, but in this moment you were completely still and relaxed against her. She could really cherish the moment, you didn't pull away and you weren't going anywhere.

Billie wasn't one to get nervous easily or often, she was usually quite a confident person. That never changed much when it came to people she previously had feelings for, but with you that all changed.

As she sat there in the meeting room, Billie was nothing but nerves, scared she would move by accident and wake you, scared that you would pull away and scared she that you may never get this close with her again.

She didn't realise the meeting had ended until people began walking out of the room, one by one, some stopping to talk with others.

Billie frowned as she remained seated, unsure of what to do. She watched people leave the room one by one as she contemplated if she should wake you or not.

Twelve became six and six became three and suddenly it was just Billie and you, alone together with you remaining asleep.

She looked down at you one last time, her smile returning as she noticed how peaceful you looked. She didn't want to wake you but knew you had plans of your own that you had to get to.

Billie hid her smile as she leaned slightly closer to you. "Ahem." She cleared her throat, "hey." She called softly towards you ear. Billie watched you stir awake slowly, your features turning confused as you adjusted yourself in the seat. "Hey." Billie said again, this time with you awake.

She hid her disappointment when you lifted your head from her shoulder rather quickly.

You looked around at the now empty room, which had been full when you arrived, and then to Billie, quickly putting the pieces together as to what had happened.

You cringed, feeling embarrassed, causing your face to flush as you stood up. "Im so sorry." You said, your voice slightly hoarse from sleep. "I don't remember falling asleep, you should have pushed me away or something." You joked, feeling awkward.

Billie looked up at you with a shake of her head. "I didn't mind." She had a small smile on her face that made you believe her words.

You smiled back. You were relieved that you didn't annoy her. "I'll see you around?" You asked shyly.

Billie nodded her head, slightly laughing as she watched you be all cute and shy. "For sure." She said confidently.

With one last smile to her you left the room, you face a rosy hue.

When the room was empty and it was just her, Billie laughed quietly to herself, beginning to play with her rings once again. She smiled at the memory of you asleep on her shoulder, noticing immediately how she longed for you to do it again.

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[monster-disaster]

Crazy idea: busty cow hybrid CEO x personal assistant reader. The assistant is timid and clumsy. The CEO finds it adorable and the reader cute (the reason she hired her) and she finds a lot of joy in flustering her. The assistant does normal assistant stuff but she is also hired to drain her boss's tits (she is not aware of this) and things get hot and heavy.

cow hybrid!boss x human!Reader Good to know: well... milking? not really graphic just a tease

_

After the interview, you were stunned when, just three days later, your now-boss called to offer you the job.

"It's yours if you are still interested, darling."

You were floored. To you, the meeting had felt like a catastrophe from start to finish, and you were sure you would never hear of her ever again.

The morning of the interview had been chaos. You miscalculated the time it would take to get to the office and ended up sprinting through the streets like a lunatic. A patch of ice nearly sent you flying, and by the time you finally reached the building, your shirt clung to you in damp patches, and there was no amount of awkward arm positioning that could hide them. You were a complete mess.

Then came the boss herself. When you stepped into her office and came face-to-face with the towering cow hybrid, your brain short-circuited. She was nothing like you expected. Her attire didn’t help your already frazzled nerves; a crisp, white button-down shirt strained against her full figure, clearly without the support of a bra. When you sat down across from her desk, your eyes betrayed you, lingering far too long on the way her shirt pulled taut over her breasts and dark nipples.

The second you snapped your gaze back to her face, her lips curled into a slow, knowing smirk. It was the kind of expression that made it clear she’d noticed exactly where your attention had wandered, and worse, she didn’t mind it at all. If anything, she seemed amused.

“Enjoying the view?”

Your stammered apologies came out garbled, and she didn’t even bother hiding her chuckle. Instead, she began asking about your life, your experiences, and why you wanted the position. And your answers were... lackluster, to say the least. What could you say? You were sick of the monotony of working on a factory line at the edge of the city. The repetitive grind had worn you down, and even though you weren’t sure you were qualified for an office assistant role, you craved something different. Something better. You mumbled your way through the interview, painfully aware of how unimpressive you sounded. Yet, she listened patiently, her sharp eyes scanning you as if sizing you up for some invisible checklist.

When it was finally over, you left the building convinced you’d blown it, but she still called you three days later, and of course you were interested. For the life of you, you couldn’t figure out why she’d chosen you, but hey, you weren’t about to question it too much.

You are an assistant now, and you are determined not to ruin it for yourself. Especially since, let’s face it, you are not exactly a natural at this.

You stumble over tasks an experienced assistant could handle with their eyes closed. It is a constant uphill battle; you misfile documents, stammer through phone calls, and forget which cryptic post-it note means what.

Most days, you just focus on doing your best and keeping your head down.

It’s not easy, though. Working so close to the woman who gave you this chance and has the power to take it away at any moment is enough to push you into a mild panic all the time. And every time she calls your name, your stomach flips like you are about to be hauled into the principal's office just much worse.

The sharp click of her hooves against the tiled office floor makes your stomach plummet. She stops at the edge of your desk, her towering form casting a shadow over your scattered papers.

You don’t realize you’re holding your breath while staring at her with wide eyes until she speaks. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost," she says, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Something on your mind?"

Your throat feels dry. "I- uh, I made a mistake," you stammer, clutching the report in your hands like it might shield you somehow. "I sent the wrong file to a client. I’m so sorry, I’ll fix it right away, but I just thought you should know-"

She tilts her head, and the amused glint in her eyes makes you feel like a mouse cornered by a very playful cat. Well, cow, but then, the analogy doesn't work so... "Relax," she says. "Mistakes happen. You are not going to get fired over one wrong file."

Oh, how you wish it were only one wrong file.

You blink, startled. "I’m not?"

"Not unless you want me to," she quips, her smile turning downright mischievous.

Your face burns. "N-no, of course not!"

"Good," she says. "Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to fetch me a coffee, and while you are doing it, don’t get lost this time."

Her gaze stays locked on yours, one brow arched in question until you nod.

"Good," she purrs. "And don’t forget the sugar this time. Sweet things are important to me."

The implication in her tone hits you like a shock wave, and you nearly trip over your chair in your rush to get away. Her soft laughter follows you all the way to the break room, where you take a moment to press your burning face against the cool metal of the coffee machine.

So, after all the chaos you’ve managed to create in just one month, you are not exactly shocked when your boss asks you to stay after work. Naturally, your mind races with possibilities. Fixing documents? Sure, that’s reasonable. Reviewing her plans for the week? Definitely within the realm of your responsibilities. You brace yourself for a long evening hunched over her desk, trying to make up for your earlier mistakes.

What you don’t expect is that the things she needs help with have nothing to do with spreadsheets, emails, or even her overwhelming calendar. No, it turns out your boss’s definition of help extends to something far more personal.

Because somehow, without warning, you find yourself tasked with something that was definitely not in your job description: dealing with your boss’s milk. No one warned you about this. Certainly, no one mentioned that you’d be standing a breath away from her, fumbling over buttons that seemed to mock your every move.

The realization hits you like a truck. In the awkward silence that follows her request, all you can think is how utterly unprepared you are for this.

"Careful," she murmurs in a way that sends a shiver down your spine. "I’d hate for you to tear it."

Your fingers tremble as you reach for the buttons of her shirt, the fabric taut and strained against her curves. The silence in the room feels heavy, filled only with the soft rustle of cloth as you work to unfasten each button. One by one, the gaps widen, revealing more of her generous curves beneath. When you finally undo the last button, the sight before you renders you utterly still. Her breasts, full, soft, and impossibly inviting, spill free from the confines of her blouse. Her hard, dark nipples glisten with droplets of pearly white milk.

Your throat tightens, and your gaze flickers up to meet hers. Her smirk is nothing short of predatory, her dark eyes glowing with satisfaction. She reaches out, her hand firm yet gentle as it finds the back of your neck.

"Be a good assistant, Y/N," Her voice is a velvety purr that sends a shiver down your spine.

Before you can process what’s happening, she is guiding you closer, her fingers pressing lightly against your skin, and your instinct takes over as the coherent thoughts leave your racing mind. Your tongue flicks out, capturing a droplet of milk that carries a sweetness unlike anything you’ve ever tasted.

The sound of her pleased hum fills the air, vibrating through you as her hand holds you steady. "Good," she murmurs, her tone dripping with approval as your lips part fully, your mouth closing around her. The soft pull of your suction elicits a low, throaty moan from her. "I knew you’d be perfect for the job."

[elssero]

YOOO CONGRATS ON 1K !!! <333 i’ll totally send in an ask for funsies hehehe (but ofc no pressure to write it!)

sooo how abt a one shot with reader and teenage hawks (like 17 or 18? but definitely before he has his official hero debut) and him and her started as partners at the commission, but they click from the start and are total trauma bonded best friends to lovers

ANYWAYS THEY’RE TRAINING TOGETHER BC THEIR HERO DEBUTS ARE COMING UP SOON AND SO THEY SPAR 🤗 he flirts, she flirts, he get flustered, she pins him and wins the match, they both go quiet and stare at each other longer than “just friends” would—

the age old story that i eat up every time tbh 😪 bonus points if he confesses and lands an actual non-platonic date with her, but i’ll leave it up to youuu <3

impending lovers.

hawks

-from partners in the commission, to friends, and maybe something more.

part of my 1k event! submit your asks!

‘ready to get your ass beat today birdboy?’

keigo stands around 15 paces in front of you, an amused look on his face.

‘i thought i told you to stop calling me that’

the gym is empty other than you two, it gives you the ability to speak freely, act freely, a small sense of freedom. but only when it’s just you and him.

you had originally thought it best to ignore him, all those years ago when he was brought into the commission just a couple of months after you were.

he was.. a distraction.

you think he still is.

but when he smiled at you on the first day you met him you knew it was no use.

‘you finally decided on a hero name?’

‘oh um yeah- i think im going for hawks.’

hawks. it suited him. it felt powerful, matched his huge- beautiful red wings. it’s why you had suggested it in the first place.

‘you went for my suggestion huh?’

he looks away- maybe a little embarrassed. bashful and blushing at your realisation that he picked the only name you suggested.

it’s always been like this. you tease and you laugh, border on flirting until- nothing. nothing ever happens, your beginning to think nothing ever will, although that’s probably for the best.

‘of course i did- come on, we’re wasting good sparing time’

the first part of his sentence is hushed, whispered, as though he doesn’t want you to hear it.

you don’t comment on it, instead you get into position, fists in front of your face to avoid a potential quick attack from him.

you’ll always find yourself here, standing in front of him, a couple feet away, just slightly out of reach.

he doesn’t count down, instead lunging towards you in one quick movement. you watch his hands, he’s not looking to punch, it’s more of a grab, a push maybe.

you move to the left- not quick enough, he trips you up with the side of his wing but the impact sends you both tumbling in the same direction.

neither of you give up, tossing around on the ground- hands reaching to grab the others in an attempt to stop them moving.

you hook his legs on yours, immobilising his lower half before you climb over him, giving yourself the upper hand.

it’s harder for him to fight you from below you, he’s trying to push you off, but your legs have his in a vice and it becomes clear to him that your not going anywhere.

you have his hands now, pinned together above his head, he’s attempts to move his wings, but their trapped under both of your body weights. you have him.

you haven’t really been looking at him- other than predicting where he was going to put his hands, he’s unmoving now, accepting defeat. it gives you a second to look at him, his face.

he’s staring at you, your faces are alot closer than you thought. your nose is inches from his, you can feel his breath on your face, you can feel his chest rise and fall.

your staring at each other now- and he has this look in his eye, you’ve seen it before, for split seconds. it’s admiration- but there’s something more. he looks almost dazed.

you want to move- but you can’t. there’s nothing holding you down but the idea of ruining this moment- so delicate, soft. it breaks your heart.

you can’t indulge, you’ve never let yourself before. you see him, of course you do. you’ve always saw him.

you see him fly, you see him laugh, and cry- your the only one who ever sees him.

it hurts that he’ll never see you too.

it’s better to push him away, don’t let yourself indulge.

in one quick movement your separated from him, you miss the look of panic in his eyes as he jumps up after you.

walking away, going to grab your water or a rag to dry the sweat, just anything to have a little space from him.

you don’t make it far.

‘wait- stop-!’ his voice is a little frantic- whatever he’s about to do is unplanned.

‘how long are we going to pretend?’

it catches you of guard- he’s gripping your hand, spinning you towards him. the look of upset on his face breaks your heart all over again.

‘what are you talking about?’

he shakes his head, even lets out a little laugh, as though he’s saying something obvious that your not understanding.

but there’s something desperate about the way he’s holding your hand in his, about the uneven breaths he’s letting out, about the way he’s looking at you.

he’s desperate- and suddenly it all makes sense.

‘i can’t keep pretending you don’t mean everything to me.’

[grasshopperdoingdogpaddle]

Do you have any hcs for good!Chase in that alternate timeline in which Clay becomes the leader? What are his dynamics with other monks because with Omi it's quite obvious (he's basically his dad)

When he was with Master Fung and the group as a whole, Chase was essentially a TA to Master Fung, but that's not what he was usually doing.

Master Monk Chase still sort of did his separate thing and did pilgrimages and solo missions like we see Guan doing, he simply chooses to work with the Xiaolin temple much more closely and base himself there instead of splintering to his own temple. He's still usually not part of the kids' Shen Gong Wu hunts.

Even after Master Fung is gone, Chase stills goes off on his own to do solo missions (like searching for Omi himself when Omi sneaks off back to the temple, something Chase does seem like he really filled the others in on).

So he doesn't really consider himself in charge of supervising them or acting other them-- that was Master Fung before, and now it's Clay. Chase sort of becomes Clay's occasional TA, but they still operate semi-autonomously.

Chase leaves most decisions about the monks to Clay. This new home, the farmland, Master Fung's statue-- those things are all Clay. Chase doesn't feel any need to question or challenge Clay's position, and is certainly not competing with him for it.

Master Fung and the other three monks who aren't Omi facilitate a lot of mutual growth in each other throughout the main series, and they do a lot of the same here. So you can tell Master Fung was still their main teacher.

Master Fung still helps Raimundo learn discipline and duty and to stop hiding behind a class clown status to avoid his fear of applying himself that Raimundo leaned on to avoid failure, and Raimundo still helps Master Fung learn to be more gentle and more empathetic with his lessons and more willing to bend and take their input into consideration and respect his students more. Master Fung still helps teach Kimiko how to calm down and find her center when she wants to and Kimiko helps teach Master Fung how to be emotionally intelligent and emotionally available for a kid who is crying or breaking down and needs a soft hand. Master Fung still helps Clay find a home away from the suffocating environment of the Bailey Family home and in praising Clay for his out-of-the-box thinking, and Clay stills helps Master Fung in being the support and foundation the team needs.

Chase's involvement indirectly smoothed out a lot of the internal affairs with the monks from the series. That, and Hannibal's presence from the start meaning that Wuya was slightly less hard pressed in needing a lackey outside of Jack.

Either way, in some way or another, I don't think Raimundo betrayed the monks in this timeline. Raimundo's conflict with and resentment towards Master Fung still happened, but it was a much smaller hiccup and they resolved it differently, since the permanent cracks in the group's dynamic that Raimundo left from his betrayal don't seem to be present in the alternate timeline.

Kimiko seems pretty friendly towards Chase, since she was the only one who stopped what she was doing to wave and greet him when Chase returned after what must have been a very sudden and unexplained departure. Though Chase's restrained greeting back is definitely something less personal and animated than he had with Omi a few minutes prior.

But Kimiko is also very willing to pass the Lao Mang Lone off to Chase where she vehemently stopped Raimundo from drinking it. So despite being the one of the monks who's probably friendliest with Chase, this also shows still shows that distance that still exists between Chase and the other three.

Outside of Chase's personal attachment to Omi and tendency to personally interfere in directly Omi-related matters, Chase ultimately keeps himself at that distance with the others and asks them to operate their team according to their generation's decisions. He's certainly happy for them when they do, but he also doesn't consider himself a necessary part of it.

Chase also helped iron out a lot of the drama of the leader selection, since that had to happen shortly after they lost Master Fung and the temple.

Namely, I think Chase just went ahead and declared that, although they shouldn't compete or backbite each other since the universe would be making the call in the end, Omi was not in the running-- he was the youngest and was still essentially Chase's protégé. Especially since when the topic of leadership came up, one of he monks probably pointed out Chase's very open favoritism towards Omi and asked if that would tip the scales, and Chase had to clarify that. (Because Omi freezing himself in this time had nothing to do with the leadership selection. Everyone already fully expects Omi to know that Clay is already the leader. Something else motivated Omi there.)

Chase's presence also irons out a lot of the internal conflicts in the team because he was there for Omi, and vice versa.

And Chase and Omi still facilitate mutual growth in each other-- Chase was very jaded after losing Guan and Dashi, and Omi is who helped Chase softened and come back out of his shell after 1500 years of being pretty closed off to the world. Even though Chase never really went full scorched earth the way Guan does in the main timeline, Omi is what anchors him and helps him be who he is today.

And Chase being Omi's favorite person from the start and the person he clings to frees Master Fung and Omi of their uncomfortable one-sided relationship where both Master Fung and Omi wants the other to be something and someone they just can never be and don't really want to be. In Omi's moments of acting out or feeling isolated, he has Chase to cling to. That's why Omi hasn't thrown caution to the wind and jumped into the Yin-Yang world to rescue Master Fung at any cost in this world.

[time-of-your-life-au]

Silkie the Hedgehog

Silkie is a generally energetic and upbeat hedgehog, and Sonic and Shadow's daughter by birth. She has Sonic's speed, which she combines with rollerblades that have been modified by Tails to work on multiple terrains and retract into normal shoes. She's also an introvert, but not antisocial—she loves her best friends, M.A.R.C.Y. and Verse, more than anything, but after spending time with them for a while, she needs to be by herself to recharge.

Silkie is a solid fighter, but battles tire her out, especially given the public's general expectation for her to become a legendary hero like her dad. Not that she'd ever show anything but enthusiasm for fighting—her positive attitude is typically a mask, coming from a combination of her fast mouth, her general difficulty expressing emotions, and the harm that comes to her loved ones whenever she doesn’t fight. If she ever seems down, it means that something's really, really wrong.

Silkie loves to draw! She draws her friends and family quite a lot, but she especially loves to sit up in a high place and sketch the view. She also draws several original characters, both ones she's made herself and ones Verse has come up with. She frequently listens to music while she draws; her favorite genre is alt-pop, and her favorite artist of all time is girl in red! Not that that means anything. She definitely doesn't think about M.A.R.C.Y. while listening to songs like "we fell in love in october." Stop asking.

Silkie cares about her family a lot. Shadow can be overprotective a lot of the time, and Sonic tends to let her win while racing her, but she wouldn't choose anyone else to be her parents. They're supportive, they're accepting, she can always go to them for help. Anything she hasn't talked to them about is due to her own anxiety, not anything they've actually done. As for Lapis, Silkie prides herself on being the reason they joined the family. Also on being one inch taller than it, which she never lets it forget. Though they tease each other, they mean a lot to each other, and they'll always be there for each other when needed.

[muninnhuginn]

also throwing out a few wild thoughts here after watching the new ep:

why is everyone so weird when hearing cwm's name? as we've seen cwm's thing here seems to be that he 'wants to do better by these kids' (let's ignore the safeguarding issues about saying he wants to be their friends when a teacher a sec). so, speculation: cwm deliberately takes the fall for the actual arsonist who'll likely be either xia fei or wang qing?

and yeah as everyone has picked up on cxs knows way too much to survive this loop - not sure how they're gonna play his death or if they'll specifically tie it up to s2 finale but only a week to go now

lu guang is the subtlest wdym. 'yeah like if we high five we can probably share powers' bestie what. (on a related note, his bit about 'powers are just like traits' vibed really mob psycho to me. I wonder if it's what past cxs 'taught' him about his powers after he'd grown up thinking of them in a less positive way)

said this already in another post but "what's the point in waiting if there's no hope?" is definitely a thematic string to pull on

cheng xiaoshi gets the speech/verbal understanding language module of whoever he possesses but not the written understanding. this is pure trivia, but still interesting to know. we know from his later interaction with vein that he sure doesn't retain the language knowledge after the fact

lu guang and cheng xiaoshi losing connection again during the dive. the show always make a point of highlighting when this happens. was trying to figure out if any other powers could be interfering here as happened with the twins, but touch-wise at least, it seems... unlikely? (though can't rule out other power interference entirely) but if anything, the way lu guang was sweating when we got the focus back to him after the connection rejoined makes it seem like this was an issue on his end (one which ig resulted in cxs having to improvise and therefore get caught from a show perspective). lu guang being ill affecting his powers tracks with what he said pre-twins dive in s2 though. even though the connection itself was likely lost due to the twins, he was still struggling to see everything that happened in the photo before that. I wonder if we'll return to this as a plot point at any point, the idea that lu guang being ill or injured can mess with his powers - there was a post the other day (I think by @ sunslants) about it being neat if lu guang fainted in yingdu because his whole body is giving out under this power, and whilst idk how *likely* that is in canon, it'd definitely add a new deadline to things, if lu guang has to resolve everything before his whole body just gives out

oh yeah seems like vein knows whatever it is that xia fei also knows about the arson. not super surprising but potential motive forming ig?

cheng xiaoshi getting out his feelings to his dad in the form of wang qing was very good but the whole time lu guang was like "yeah sorry I didn't give you a heads up" I was there head in hands like "lu guang. please. this is your MO at this point"

still no answer about cxs' mum and why she followed after cwm then *also* vanished (tbh even the fact cwm up and went full no contact with cxs has me like ??? but I can't tell if we're meant to just let that be or question it further). it feels like there's way more to this, but hard to see how that plus everything else is getting resolved in the one episode we have left

"You're a total control freak" "That's because of you." Lu Guang....

Basketball halo'd Lu Guang when he asked Cheng Xiaoshi to do ibuprofen together....

Cheng Xiaoshi wanting to get revenge on the bullies and Lu Guang instantly responding along the lines of "well, hey, they're all gonna die soon" cracked me up. Was probably meant to be more of an "oof" but. I laughed.

[b1asho]

Erm, oc comic? Just click on the images idk how to change the image position formatting here yet :(

This is what I've been doing all this time, I need to practice putting these things together. I like some things and had fun, but it also looks kind of yucky.

Oh well

Featured here are Rinshi, a muttreazik, and their boss/sister Maro, a Sundyne who's been (violently) ousted from her extremely politically important clan (for terrorism and attempted assassination :D )

The two are hiding from authorities in the SEZ, and not having a great time in general.

Here's a buncha other info, aka i want to talk about my wretched ocs :

-Rinshi is a mancer, meaning they're a muttreazik with a degree of control over matter around them (think telekinesis). Their blue eyes aren't the result of my choice of coloring, thats the color they are all the time (a highly highly unusual color for muttreazik, even in the 'other' color category).

Rinshi is also a 'they' in the same way you'd call an animal an 'it' rather than a 'he' or 'she' if that makes sense. They don't think of themself as nonbibary in the human sense, instead it's more of an "outside of the binary and therefore a nonperson" way that Cerest use for xenos. It's the only option that's not male/female/he/she that they're aware of in this point in their life

Maro is a she (and VERY upset that it means she can't ascend to God emperor)

Rinshi is hunting with a nail that they’re controlling with their mind because that’s a lot easier than chasing down the alien rats yourself.

Normally this would be very easy for them but they’re kind of going through it right now, thus the major space-out and eye-bleed at the end (which normally happens to mancers who either overextend themselves or try to do stuff without any energy support from the body)

Not all Cerest-homeplanet animals have a decentralized nervous system like Cerest themselves do (such as these two animals, who have all their thinking meat in their head), but either way a shard of metal through the face isn’t good for anything

There are pockets of Cerest wildlife in the SEZ if you look for them hard enough, which Rinshi has to do because they’re currently in the outer reaches of it away from any inhabited districts where you could just buy/steal meat products. They're spending a considerable amount of time doing this since they're trying to keep a large hypercarnivore alive right now.

Maro got her face and torso cut up pretty bad during her.uh. Incident. Luckily Cerest heal fast, though infection and only eating rats has complicated and prolonged things. They’re currently living in an old habitat pod, which she can hardly leave thanks to the healing process (which has left her pretty much unable to walk. If she could, she'd definitely be the one doing the hunting because she has fewer qualms about killing things than rinshi does.)

This conversation is pretty out of character for her, but like she said, it's boring spending most of your time asleep in a garbage heap rather than pursuing your ambitions of ruling the world. Thankfully, she can always just ask her trusty retainer about things they don’t want to talk about.

‘et kerusit’ is just the Cerest version of like ‘my liege’ but specifically in the Sundyne female context and specifically for someone in Maro’s (former) rank/position in her (former) clan. "Princess" is also a pretty close analog but neither really sounded right so I made up some words. "Retainer” is the closest word I could find for what Rinshi is to Maro, and it fits fairly well (there is probably a better word out there but i like the old-timey knight vibe) they were originally employed to her clan as basically her little assistant and mandatory friend/bodygaurd/ally/etc. This happened mostly as an insult to her because that role should normally fall to a fellow sundyne and not a 'lesser species', but she has made it work.

I'm still testing this out but the Cerest language conventions are also why the question marks are out front most of the time, they don't change tone to indicate a question and instead just say an "I'm asking you a question" word at the start.

Rinshi also has a sort of stutter no matter what language they're speaking, with different words and sounds causing prolongations or repetitions. They didn't have any kind of support for the issue growing up, so theyre not great at managing it. So that's why some of their words are like that

The aforementioned rank difference is also why Maro gets 2 << instead of 1 when speaking (she's using a different enunciation of words to indicate her status, as is Rinshi. Basically ï for royalty i for commoner, or something. If they were speaking a Drecu dialect rather than a Sundyne one, their words would be in these things -> [[ ) .

As I’ve mentioned up there, they see each other more like siblings in their own mini clan (but she definitely calls the shots in their relationship )

Muttreazik think rebirth is real and they’re kind of right (at least within their own species). Rinshi does NOT want to dwell on where they used to live but those ideas were drilled in at a very young age.

[cha-melodius]

12 for henry & oscar for the hug prompts

(I love that you sent a Henry & Oscar prompt, and this one was so good for them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this one is post-canon. read all the hug ficlets)

12: The “you know I’ve always got your back” hug.

One of Henry’s favourite outcomes of stepping down from his royal position was that he had more time to devote to the network of shelters that he’s been building with Pez. He loves planning the spaces, and visiting them, and meeting with the staff to figure out better ways to serve the community. Even the fundraising galas are less tedious when he can freely tell people to sod off with the ‘His Royal Highness’ nonsense and call him Henry.

These kinds of meetings he could certainly do without. Unfortunately, winning local city governments over so they’ll approve the necessary re-zoning and building permits is a vitally important part of the process, and so Henry is steeling himself for what is likely to be an unpleasant hour of his life. Usually, Pez would be here too—Pez is aces, as he puts it, with charming people, and all Henry has to do is sit there and chip in with a few key points when Pez prompts him. But Pez is travelling for some other business meeting, and Alex is stuck at home because of an important case, so Henry was resigned to facing this one alone.

That, as it turns out, isn’t quite the case.

“Cheryl Robinson will be your biggest opponent,” Oscar is telling him. “She represents—how should I put it—some of the less progressive interests in the city, and she’s unfortunately got a lot of sway. She loves dogs, though, so if you tell a cute story about David, you’ll soften her up.”

When Henry had made plans to stay with his father-in-law for this trip, he hadn’t really expected all of this, which, in retrospect, was probably silly of him. Oscar always seemed to delight in the opportunity to help them out, and unlike Alex, Henry has no hang-ups about accepting it. He’d insisted on driving Henry to his meeting and has been giving him a run-down on every city official that will be there, including every bit of inside information he has. Henry’s so grateful for the support he could cry.

He doesn’t, though. He sits in the passenger seat and takes notes—Foster, bad toupee, mention construction budget and local contracts—as they slowly make their way through LA traffic.

“Sure you don’t want me to come in?” Oscar asks when they finally arrive. He’s not wearing business-meeting clothes, but Henry thinks he probably doesn’t care.

“I think it’s probably best I don’t surprise them with a senator they’re not expecting,” Henry replies.

“Ah, you’re probably right,” Oscar says with a grin.

Henry smooths a hand over the folio containing his notes. “Thank you for all of this, though. It’s been immensely helpful.”

“Any time.”

To Henry’s surprise, Oscar follows him out of the car and stands next to him while Henry collects his briefcase from the back. When Henry turns toward him, he reaches up to straighten Henry’s tie and brush imaginary lint off the shoulder of his jacket. Henry’s used to such fussing over his appearance, though not from Oscar, and he’s certainly not used to it being the prelude to being tugged into a hug.

“They give you any trouble, you call me, ok?” Oscar says as he holds Henry tightly. “You got this, mijo.”

Right, Henry might actually cry now, which would definitely be counterproductive. He doesn’t currently trust himself to speak, so he just nods as he straightens up again, collects himself, and heads into the meeting a lot more confident than he’d been this morning.

[peonyneko]

To Know You Pt.2 | OldestSon!Nanami x YoungestDaughter!Reader

Notes: Once again, this fanfic is very self-indulgent, so many of you may not be able to relate to it... I don't know how often I will post, I just like writing about it. Requests are open?? But to be veryy honest, I'm not sure if I have for request, but I'm open to discussions through the inbox/request box. Send me any anon messages~

I'll clean up any mistakes soon!

Word count: 6k+

Genre: Angst(?), Fluff, A touch/sprinkle of suggestive content (not really), NO SMUT YET

Warnings: Grammar mistakes (I'll fix it), vomit, not good eating habits, cursing, and arranged marriage things(?)

Extra info:

Nanami's Friends: Gojo, Geto, Shoko, Utahime, etc

Nanami's Juniors: Mainly Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara, does include Maki, Yuta, and Toge.

Nanami is hinted to be in his mid/late 30s and reader is hinted to be in her twenties.

---

OldestSon!Nanami who woke up from the smell of something good. Looking at the clock, to realize it’s past 11 AM, but quick to also realize his father gave him a week off. One, to get to know you better. Two, to plan your honeymoon for later on.

He notices you weren’t in bed, so after freshening up he follows the delicious scent. He watches as you look through the cabinets, very quietly, familiarizing yourself with what's there. You sigh in relief when you see maple syrup in the cabinet.

He found it… odd, to be honest. He usually was the one cooking for others, especially his younger siblings. He banned his brother, at that time in his early twenties, from entering the kitchen after he had burnt milk… Milk! (Though he is now much better at cooking.)

So to have you cook something was… fresh, but normal for an adult nonetheless. He wondered if you cooked for yourself often.

“Good morning. It smells nice,” he says, his voice rough and deep. You turn around with a spatula in your hand and next to you what seemed to be strawberry pancakes on a plate.

You nod, “Good morning… Yeah, thought I’d make something before you go to work.”

It clicks that he never told you. Shit. 

“My dad actually gave me the week off. I apologize for the confusion. I should’ve told you during our date,” he says, nearing you and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.

“That’s okay. We barely had the time,” you say, turning back to your pancakes and putting the last one on the plate. Another plate with scrambled eggs.

“Do you have work?” he asks and you shake your head. 

“I’m off for a week too. My boss found out I was getting married out-of-nowhere,” you shrugged, the words leaving your mouth so casually.

“You didn’t tell them?” he continues, bringing out plates and utensils to place on the table.

You shake your head, “Not that I didn’t. I told them, but they didn’t expect it so soon.”

OldestSon!Nanami hums, being in a similar position himself. Everyone’s jaw dropped when they found out, from Gojo’s loud mouth, not himself. He didn’t even tell Gojo! His mom did. She adored that blue-eyed lunatic. 

You fetch the water jug filling up the water cups. You both sit on opposite ends, a little far from each other. It gnawed at his chest, so he asked.

“Why did you want to get married?” The silence lingers for a while, and he could tell you, too, are looking for words to not hurt him.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t judge your reasons. I’m sure I’m no better,” he reassures.

You licks your lips. “For my family, I guess. My mom really wants to see me get married. She’s quite old and has health problems, so I agreed.”

Nanami noticed you held your guard up, keeping a distance between the two of you. Something you’re not telling him, but he doesn’t press.

“Do you regret it?” he asks and you shake your head.

“Not if you don’t,” you whispered before taking a bite of your pancakes. His gaze lingered on you. Not if he doesn’t? 

“You’re my wife. I won’t regret the wife I chose. Yes, we don’t know each other, but I don’t want you to feel suffocated, so please do tell me anything and everything.” 

You look back at him with sparkling eyes and then you change the topic.

He took a bite of the pancakes and eggs and was surprised. He could hug you for how fluffy and delicious they are. It didn’t even take a second to know it was better than any he made.

“What do you want to do today?” you ask. 

He hums, “I have a few places in mind, where we can go, but where do you want to go?”

“Oh, what did you have in mind?” you ask and he tells you the locations after another big bite of the pancakes. His mind can’t get over how you made the pancakes this fluffy and good.

“We can go there,” you say and his ears perk up.

“Where exactly?” he asks for specifics.

“The, um, restaurant, the Salt one,” you tried to repeat what he’d said early, only to fail.

“Ah, Saltspringlis?” he clarifies, telling you that he’ll take you tonight for dinner.

OldestSon!Nanami who notices you skipping lunch and asks you about what you wanted, only for you to say you’ll eat later, stalling on it. Hours go by and he noticed you were busy unpacking your things. He helped you, in hopes that you’d take a break and go eat, but you just continue unpacking, so he asked.

“Well, I had breakfast with you and I don’t want to be full for dinner,” you say, not paying mind to the utterly confused look on his face. Huh? 

“I also forgot,” you mumble, folding another shirt into the drawer. He felt compelled to scold you, the way he used to scold his siblings for taking way too long to go eat. But he doesn’t.

“You should eat a snack,” he suggests, folding your pants and putting it in the drawer of pants. He leaves the room, bringing back an apple, then somewhat “orders” you to sit down and eat while he unpacks for you.

OldestSon!Nanami who neatly organized your clothes the way he noticed you organizing them. Who casually reaches inside the duffle bag beside the nightstand, only for you to tighten the opening, stops his hand from moving. Your eyes were panicked and with the apple in between your lips. He stops and there are a few seconds of silence between you two.

“Um, I have underwear in this,” you explain.

OldestSon!Nanami removes his hand from the bag, the feeling on lace and silk catching his attention as he does. Your face was red and he isn’t dumb. He knows that these were perhaps lingerie packed for activities, maybe by someone else. But he’s also not crass or rude. He acts like he doesn’t know what's inside, nor does he sexualize it. 

OldestSon!Nanami who takes you to Saltspringlis, a seafood restaurant, but also invites some of his friends and company juniors. Gojo and Geto come with Yuji and Megumi, while Shoko arrives with Nobara and Maki. He was glad to know you got along with them, even if they did most of the talking, you still looked pleased but…

OldestSon!Nanami who wonders why you don’t touch your food, you just pick at it. You pick at the scallops and shrimp risotto. In the hour that passed, everyone had finished their plate except you. And soon it was time to leave. 

He wasn’t angry, no, no, no! He was curious and maybe a little disappointed. 

Your marriage was arranged. He didn’t dislike you, no it was the opposite. He liked you, platonically. But he noticed you barely ate your dinner.

He grew up being told to appreciate food and finish his plate. “Others aren’t as fortunate as we are, Kento,” his mother would say. His parents didn’t force him to finish his food if he really couldn’t. But he grew up learning it’s proper and respectful to finish what you got for yourself or what was served.

His younger siblings were told the same about finishing meals, but less tied to the rule. They weren’t kept on the table until they finished like he and another one of his siblings were. And as Nanami sees from your habits, you were probably given that leniency too.

You bit into the shrimp, eating maybe a quarter of the meal before never touching it again. And soon it was time to leave. He noticed others' questions if you were hungry. “You didn’t even eat much,” Yuji, who was around your age, exclaimed. You simply told everyone you’re full. Nanami told you to get it packed to-go and you nodded, doing just that. 

OldestSon!Nanami who fought with OnlyChild!Gojo to pay the bill for everyone. In the end, Gojo beat him by a millisecond to tap it on the card reader.

OldestSon!Nanami who was a little surprised when your stomach growled in the silent car ride. He looked over to you for a second, suggesting, “Finish the food at the house.” You only nod, not saying much.

OldestSon!Nanami who was just a tiny bit irked when he saw the to-go box still in the fridge the next morning. So, once you told him with an avoidant gaze that you didn’t want it, he ate it himself.

OldestSon!Nanami and you went through the motions of your break, one week passing by fairly quickly. You both ate together for almost every meal. ‘Almost’ because you had a tendency to avoid meals and lean towards snacking. Though, at least you’d have breakfast and dinner. Two days into the break, he helped you settle in, encouraging you to decor the place however you’d want. He didn’t mind. He wanted you to feel like you belonged.

So there you were, day three of seven days of break, at a home goods store, gawking the prices as you tried to find the cheapest ones. Why are they so expensive?! Nanami, too, was looking but he looked rather unfazed. 

You found one of the shelves to be beautiful, so beautiful you wanted it. But that feeling quickly sizzled out once the price of $1,500 revealed itself on the tag. You carried on with a tight smile, not looking back. You looked everywhere, and no matter what, nothing was under $500. Even a nightstand. A nightstand!

OldestSon!Nanami who sees you silent sigh to yourself as you walk back to the same place you started off. He asks you if this store was not to your taste, but you simply shake your head, quietly telling him it’s over your budget. 

Perplexed, he leans down, “I’m well-over capable to pay it.”

OldestSon!Nanami watches you explain that you aren’t going to let him pay for it! If you like it and want it, you’ll buy it. He is just there looking back, absolutely astonished. Though, he hid it well behind his stoic face and clenched jaw. Who told you you’d be paying for these things?

“I respect that you want to pay for it, but you’re not going to. Moreso, I won’t let you. If you like something, I’ll get it. It’s for the house,” he replies, beginning to walk towards someone.

Before you can even attempt to convince him not to, he tells an employee to buy two items, giving the item number, as well. You watch him not hesitate the slightest. Even on the drive home, he doesn’t say much about what he bought, so you assumed he got what he liked. 

OldestSon!Nanami who tells you to come down the next day, because a delivery came in. You look at him in utter disbelief as the same beautiful shelf stood in front of you. He watches as your expression goes from confusion to shock to admiration and then to…

“Wait, I- Did you buy it because of me?” your brows furrowed as your voice got small. You had a sort of guilt in your voice, almost as if you didn’t want him to get it.

So he panics. “No! No… I got it because I really liked it,” he lied, “Why? Did you?”

Your face calms and you sigh in relief, “Yeah… Can I help you build it?”

OldestSon!Nanami and you who spend day 4 of your break building and moving things around the house. He notices you bump into things here and there, so he just… moves them out of the way when you shuffle around. He quietly reorganizes the pantry, so you don’t risk breaking your hip when you climb the countertop.

What? He caught you easily climbing it on your knees, as if you do that often when he’s not looking. It made you avoid his gaze for hours, with an embarrassed laugh, mumbling, “Sorry. I’ll clean it.”

YoungestDaughter!Reader who still notices him reorganizing the pantry because she’s always aware of Nanami. Who enjoys building the shelf with Nanami, her brows furrows in focus and eyes fixed on the screws. She organizes her book, usually by title and genre, but quietly places Nanami’s favorites to his eye level (knowing from his family and friends). 

YoungestDaughter!Reader who places a cup of water on the kitchen counter, knowing Nanami will just drink it. He’s done that before. What? She’s just making sure he’s hydrated. Who softly asks Nanami if he has any photos he wants to put up there.

He does. 

OldestSon!Nanami who opens up his album of high school memories and recent pictures with his juniors. All of them. Who stupidly skips past the wedding pictures, not noticing YoungestDaughter!Reader’s eyes wait in foolish anticipation.  

YoungestDaughter!Reader who is quick to move on from the slight disappointment. After all, this relationship had no feelings, it’s arranged. She smiles at the memories, but it dawns on her that she doesn’t know him… At All. Certainly not anything close to what his juniors even know. So she asks about his high school and college, hoping for any response even if it’s not a deep one.

“It was fun,” Nanami whispered, brushing his thumb over two faces. A girl and a guy. 

Silence. Horrible, awkward silence.

“Uh, what year was that?” you ask from behind him. He doesn’t talk and so you let it go. You hated this feeling, the sticky, horrible feeling of begging for him to respond or talk. 

After all, you grew up knowing to swallow your feelings and just let people be, especially if they didn’t want you. You grew up being the listener. When no one asked or responded, you wouldn’t speak either. You hated this sticky, unbearable feeling or being the only one wanting to talk.

You look through your own set of pictures, ones of your friends and family, some that you already printed to frame. You and Nanami decorated the shelf, but sadly it looked as if two roommates had done it, not a married couple. 

You keep your thoughts to yourself. You knew what to expect coming in. No matter how much his mother told this would be love, the moment you knew Nanami seemed to have… settled, you knew this is just that, a settlement. 

But you stupidly already started to enjoy his presence.

YoungestDaughter!Reader who has countless sketches of Nanami in her sketchbook, all of them in her forbidden, never-open-in-front-of-others sketchbook. All of them are drawn in the month you’ve known him.  Some doodles, others a bit more detailed. 

OldestSon!Nanami, who saw the sketch book lying around, picks it up out of curiosity, but never opens it. He respects your privacy. 

OldestSon!Nanami and you spend day 5 in the park with a beautiful garden. He noticed your eyes sparkle at the flowers, taking yet another picture as you walked around. He sends it to his mom, who replies with a dozen pink, yellow, and orange hearts for you, calling you, “So cute.” You come back to him, with a couple small flowers in your hand, dropping it into his palm without touching him, “I didn’t want to rip them off, but I found some instead.”

OldestSon!Nanami who blushes as you turn your back and continue walking as if you didn’t just give him the cutest small flowers of yellow and blue daisies.

OldestSon!Nanami who brings home salmon the next day and you cook it. He notices you eat only part of it and wait for him to finish before claiming that you're full. He lets it go, not saying anything about it.

The rest of the day you two are within each other's vicinity, but doing different things. You sketching something in your sketchbook and he's reading.

OldestSon!Nanami begins to dose off as he's reading, his book slipping from him a sliver. Despite being high alert with others, he can't help but feel a little at peace with... you.

You place your sketchbook aside, taking the blanket off yourself and putting it on Nanami instead. You take the book from his sleeping state and hesitantly tuck him into the blanket.

Nanami wakes up right when you put the blanket on him and he can't help but feel weird fluttering in his stomach. A few seconds of silent stares that happen between you two. You to him. Him to you.

"Um," you break the silence, "You should sleep... in the bedroom. You'll hurt your neck."

Nanami who hums, knowing that if he spoke, it'll be a stutter of words. He notices how you look so "caught in the act" when you did nothing wrong. He gives you a smile, clearing his throat as he stands up.

"Are you tired?" he asks.

You look back at your materials splayed out on the living room table and couch. Looking back at him, you shrug your shoulders.

"I'm not tired, but I can... keep you company after I clean up."

OldestSon!Nanami who waits 20 minutes, too giddy to sleep because you said you'd keep him company. Usually, you two went to sleep at different times. You were always staying up later than him.

OldestSon!Nanami who whispers goodnight as you settle into the bed, reading a book in your hand and small light on the book. He told you that you can keep the lights or lamp on, but you refused. You use a tiny book light

OldestSon!Nanami and you spend the night of your last day of break together at yet another expensive seafood restaurant. Nanami had asked you where you wanted to go, but you let him decide, telling him you didn’t know the place well.

You’d ordered a salmon dish with a side of asparagus. The price wasn’t the issue. He didn’t mean to get a little… irked. You took twenty minutes to order, but he didn’t mind. And by the time he’d eaten his food, you barely made a dent in yours.

He waited and waited, the conversation between you two was longer than the length you took to eat. The conversation was nothing out of the ordinary, just about both of your jobs and going back to the usual work routine. All that stuff. 

Your food long went cold and you were lingering, not touching it.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, curiously.

“Oh, no nothing. Why?” You ask, tilting your head.

“You’re not eating and your food is cold,” he points out. You look down at your plate and curl up. He should’ve stopped.

“It’s not good to waste food,” he adds, wiping his hands on the cloth.

“Yeah, um, I’m just full,” you quietly say, your neck heating up from his gaze. The same one that you got when you were younger. From many, many people.

You’d grown up similar to Nanami, but instead of being let off the hook your family yelled at you to eat and finish food. Admittedly, you avoided food because you were easily full, you’d prefer to have small portions. It didn’t help that your parents were on the poorer side. They’d guilt you about the money they spent on food.

And as Nanami said those words, you relive those memories.

“You’re all skin and bones! Why are you not eating?!”

“Fish is good for you, why are you being so picky?”

“She never eats. It’s such a hassle. What did I do wrong?.”

“I tried so many times to make her eat fish, she never does.”

“You should be happy. Lots of people can’t even eat fish.”

So, to avoid giving Nanami the wrong impression, despite heavily disliking seafood, you forced yourself to at least finish half, until you just couldn’t anymore. This month alone, you've eat more fish than you have in a lifetime.

The salmon left a bad taste in your mouth and you felt like throwing up. You would’ve had it not been for the asparagus you finished.

“Are you done?” Nanami asks, again. You nod your head with flushed cheeks, squeezing your hands in your lap. Sorry. 

He sighs and finishes paying. He barely says a word to you as you both go to the car. The food swirls in your stomach, the taste of the seafood still in your mouth palette. You didn’t get the chance to wash the gag-worthy taste away with water.

“Thank y-“

“If you didn’t want to eat out, you could’ve told me,” he bluntly said, gripping the steering wheel. He drove without looking at you, just a little bit irked. Okay, not just a little. Irked. He’s annoyed.

Gojo buys you food that you didn’t eat, then you don’t eat this time either. You never seemed to finish it, but then you eat something else much later on, ignoring the food container from the restaurant. Did you want fresh food? He’d get it. He just wanted you to be honest if you didn’t want to eat it anymore now that it’s old. Or that you didn’t want to eat with him and his friends in the first place.

“I’m not trying to force you to do anything. We’re married even though it was arranged, but I’m not here to force you,” he adds, and your stomach sinks further.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble as he drives in silence, paying you no mind. A few minutes go by. Your guilt grew more and you could physically feel his irritation.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to go eat,” you add, playing with your hands. I’m sorry. 

“Then?” He raises a brow, eyes in the road.

Your throat felt hot and your stomach swirls as the car hit a pothole. You didn’t want to admit it. You didn't want to admit that you didn’t like fish. You didn’t like seafood. Few exceptions, but fish was definitely not one. You tried to like it, but nothing ever got you to.

“I felt full,” you mumble and he is quick to click his tongue.

“Then you could’ve ordered something you wouldn’t waste. That simple,” he adds. 

He didn’t know why he got worked up. You weren’t a kid. He normally doesn’t care about habits. But you didn’t even have a full meal since breakfast. Yes, he noticed. How are you NOT hungry?

Growl! You bit your lip as your stomach made noises. Nanami sighed as he, too, heard it. You clearly were if your stomach was still growling.

“You don’t have to lie. I won’t blame you if you feel weird about going out with me. As I said, this marriage was done quickly and we’re not in love. ”

“No, I just… couldn’t finish it. I knew I probably would like it. I wanted to try, but… It didn’t taste good,” you mumble at the end. As Nanami drives, the sight of swift cars and alternating lights makes your stomach flip like hurricane swirls.

“But you got it anyway. You should’ve ordered something you could finish.”

“I’m sorry,” you mumble out, your hand reaching up to cover your nose and mouth.

“No need to apologize to me. Just… it’s not good to waste food,” he said, voice flat and stern.

You felt shame rise up to your cheek as the food began to rise up your throat. You’d tried to swallow the sickly throat-wrenching feeling, but it was getting more and more unbearable. More and more the food climbed up your stomach and throat.

“Stop- Stop the car,” you quickly express, opening your seatbelt. And he does, pulling over immediately..

You stumble out of the car, and spill your guts out. Every bit of fish and asparagus you ate now spilled out on the ground. Nanami curses, his stomach sinking to the floor as you heave and bend over. He leaves the car to rub your back, his eyes brimmed with worry.

Fish usually made you queasy, especially if it smelled fishy. So you avoided it, but seeing Nanami always eat it so deliciously made you want to match his preference too. He got you water and you profusely apologized. He shakes his head, worried to no end. He checks your temperature and finds nothing. He’s there with you crouched down until your stomach calms, your arms settling beside you.

“What's wrong?”

“I’m sorry… I don’t like seafood.” And it clicks for him. Your face dropped when you looked through the menu, which had nothing but fish and scallops.

Fuck, he thought. He loves seafood, so did his entire family. It seemed like your family also enjoyed it, so he assumed you liked it too. But not once did he ever see you reach for any seafood dishes. Ever. 

He’d grown up eating anything, he wasn’t picky, moreso he wasn’t allowed to be. He didn’t care as long as it wasn’t sardines. You must’ve forced yourself to eat even half of the salmon. He carries you to the car, clicking in your seatbelt for you.

“I’m sorry,” he admits, “I should’ve told you it was seafood. It’s my fault, not yours.”

“Still it was expensive and you paid, so I can pay you back for wasting it,” your voice was so small and quiet. As if you expected him to be mad about it. As if you expect him to yell at you.

His heart aches, and he shakes his head, “No, no. What? That doesn’t matter. The price doesn’t matter. I’m your husband, it’s only a given.”

He help you get back into the car, making sure you were no long queasy. OldestSon!Nanami who has a small stash of medicine in a box of his car. He gives you a bottle of water and some nausea relief. Driving a little slower to avoid making your vision hazy and stomach churn again. Right when heard your stomach rumble, he was quick to stop at a random late night bakery.

“Do you like sweets?” He asks and you nod, only to panic when he starts to leave the car.

“No, you don’t have to! You’re wasting money,”

His brows furrow, “What? Nonsense, you threw up. And you’re hungry”

“I’ll buy it myself. Seriously.”

“No, sit here. What do you like?”

“I’m not telling you,” you insist.

“Then I’ll just get one of every flavor.”

You scoff at his ‘promise,’ “No you won’t.”

“You think?” he smirks, cocking his head to the side.

“You won’t,” you dryly chuckle, crossing your arms. You were too weak from the nausea to get up as he shut the car door, assuming he was joking. Surely, he’d just get a croissant.

He didn’t, in fact, just get a croissant. Keeping his word, Nanami comes back with a box full of pastries. Your eyes widen at the sheer amount in your lap.

“I- I can’t finish this!”

“I’ll help. Anything left over I’ll give it to friends. Please, I don’t want you fainting.”

He noticed you hesitate to grab the fancy one, the tiramisu croissant, so before you go for the plain butter croissant instead, he speaks.

“Go for it. I bought it for you,” he softly encourages. With a sheepish smile you take it, biting into the croissant.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” Nanami says, regretting his lecturing.

“You’re not a kid and you’re free to eat however much and whatever you want. I don’t mean to control you. I have no idea what got over me to act like that. I’m sorry.”

You nod your head, “That’s alright. I know you said it from a good place. I, uh, need to get better at letting you know about these things too.” 

That night, nothing big changed, but Nanami was sure of one thing: He never wants to see you sad and uneasy.

He couldn’t help that your tears made his heart ache. Maybe it was similar to the way he can’t see his juniors hurt? He just knew he didn’t want to see you unhappy. Maybe you were becoming a friend? He doesn’t know.

OldestSon!Nanami and you who still sleep with your backs faced away from each other, but closer. The distance would completely disappear if one of you flipped over. 

OldestSon!Nanami checks on you when waking up at the crack of dawn, he touches your forehead. And then realizes….

Realizes he hasn’t even hugged you, let alone held your hand. The farthest you’ve both gone was this… Him touching your forehead. And right then, he wanted to bang his head on the wall.

But maybe it was for the best? What if you don’t like him? What if you want a divorce soon? What if you liked someone else? Why would she like you? Someone so fucking old-

You groan in your sleep, moving around and facing him. His breath gets caught in his throat as the palm of his hand is now pressed between the bed and your cheek. Your hair strand cover part of your face, and fuck you looked so cute. 

An ache sew itself into Nanami's heart. He felt as though he'd ruined your life. Your love life. He wonders if you given no choice. Because why would you agree to marry him? You could've chosen anyone... But you chose him...

OldestSon!Nanami who went to sleep like that, not daring to move his hand from your cheek. So when you wake up, you wake up confused as to why you accidentally practically pinned Nanami to the edge of the bed (it was only his arm under you).

YoungestDaughter!Reader who wakes up a little excited because she gets to make him a lunchbox for the first time. She really wanted him to try one of her recipes that she made herself. She hesitates, thinking of cooking something common, but listening to her heart, she makes him something she came up with.

OldestSon!Nanami who smiles at the lunch you made him for before he headed to work. He gives you a small smile, thanking you. You smile back, shrugging and playing with the hem of your shirt, as if it was too embarrassing for him to notice it. 

OldestSon!Nanami who also drives you to your office place, making sure you went inside the office before driving to his own.

OldestSon!Nanami who got many compliments and congratulations for his marriage. He even got a couple of sad eyes from some singles. He didn’t know why. Were they sad he got married before them? (No, they were sad it wasn’t them who he got married to. Both those employees flirted with him before, but he never took the hint. Gojo and Geto knew, but they never told him.)

OldestSon!Nanami who didn’t touch the lunch you made for him, forgetting about it when Gojo practically dragged him to eat out because, “Suguru is too busy to eat with me.” 

Not only that, he didn’t even get the time to catch his breath because of how busy it got with him back in the office. When he took a shower after work, you noticed the lunchbox was heavy, opening it to only find it full and untouched. 

YoungestDaughter!Reader’s heart fell to the floor seeing the food not even halfway done. She contemplated asking him, but when he came to the kitchen with a laptop in his hand and a stoic face, her questions answered themselves. Maybe he didn’t get the time.

That day you both did not speak much with each other. Both of you had different jobs and after the week long break, there was much to catch up on for both of you

So the very next day, you make him lunch again. A different recipe with salmon and rice. You even tasted it to make sure it was good, even if you’d prefer it with chicken instead. 

Your routine of waking up together and leaving together continued for a second time. You were dropped off first and then he went about his way.

OldestSon!Nanami whose second day back was hectic, more so than the first. He didn't even get a break, let alone the chance to touch his lunchbox.

YoungestDaughter!Reader’s heart, once again, shattered seeing the lunch full. The note she left inside of “Hope today is good! Take deep breaths^^” discarded all the way at the bottom. Crunched up and discarded.

OldestSon!Nanami and you spent the day in different work rooms. You in yours. Him in his. You slept in the same bed. Close, but once again faced away. Backs towards one another. 

OldestSon!Nanami didn’t say anything when he noticed you didn’t make lunch the next day, thinking you were tired, so he made it himself. You saw him do so, as you grabbed a yogurt and canned coffee. In silence, he dropped you off and went about his way to work. This continued for the week, before he asked. He asked right when you returned from work, surprisingly returning later than usual. Much later. Perhaps two hours late.

“Why did you stop making lunch?” He notices you freeze, trying to gather your thoughts. You had just gotten out of the shower, freshly wet hair and in your baggy mix-matched pajamas.

“Not that you must. You don’t. I’m a grown man. I can make it myself. I was just… I was merely curious,” he adds, hoping to put off the pressure of answering.

“Oh,” you begin, playing with the hem of your sleeve, “I thought you didn’t like it. I didn’t want to force you to eat something you didn’t like.”

“Why’d you think that?” he tilts his head, completely lost.

“You told me one time that you went out to eat and brought back a full container, so I assumed you didn’t want to eat it. But, I shouldn’t have assumed, I’m sorry.” 

“No!” he says, stepping closer to you,“I should’ve clarified. Gojo forcefully took me out to eat. I also… completely forgot you packed me something. So it’s my fault, not yours.”

You look up at him, nodding, a hint of sadness in your eyes “So, you don’t mind eating what I make?”

He frowns, shaking his head and leaning down to you, “Why would I? Is anything wrong?”

You shake your head, as if you wanted to avoid talking about it. Before you can leave, he gently pulls your arm, leaning in close. He tilts his head to connect your face with his, a slight worry in his eyes.

“Hey, talk to me,” he whispers, “I don’t want you silently trapping your thoughts.”

You stall a bit more, before sheepishly chuckling. Shrugging as you answer, “No big deal, really. It’s a small thing that I guess I took too far. You don’t need to worry.” 

You attempt to leave, again, but he doesn’t let you. Stopping you in your tracks with his arm out with stern look, the same one he’d give his younger siblings with his brow raised so they spill whatever secret they had. You, being the youngest in your family, also know that look very well.

“Just… I- Whenever I made food for my family when I was younger, it was alway untouched,” you whisper, your eyes looking down at the floor instead of up at him. His heart aches as the words reach his ears.

You dryly laugh, “It is not even that serious, but I guess it still hurt. I remember making them breakfast one time and no one ate it. Yeah, I was a teenager and maybe it didn’t look good, but… I hoped at least one person would have some.” 

You looked so small, curling into yourself as you seem to be overthinking the memory. 

Your words getting quieter and quieter as you spoke, “It also seemed like they didn’t think I could make good food? I don’t know. It’s not even that serious, really. My older sisters were better at making traditional food anyway. Even when I got better, I always worried no one would like it, so I just wouldn’t make it.” 

He swallows the ball in his throat, feeling his heart crumble. That explains the hesitant stare you’d give him as he ate your food. Whenever you make something, you’d add a small ‘It’s probably not good.’

He noticed, but just assumed you were learning to cook, not that you were embarrassed of your skill. Hell, you were better at many dishes than him. He’d have your food over anything his family made.

He lets out a guilty sigh and hesitantly reaches for your hand, “You’re a good cook, so please try not to demean yourself. I understand this hesitance of yours, but I would never, ever leave your food to rot. I’ll eat everything and anything you make.”

OldestSon!Nanami who silent vows to always eat the lunch you pack him. And as always your cooking was nice. YoungestDaughter!Reader who encourages him to at least decide the menu, so she does not make him something he dislikes. Who tell Nanami that he’s never obligated to eat everything, just as much as he wants.

OldestSon!Nanami and you who have yet to go on a honeymoon or big trip because your works have you two so, so busy. 

A month and a half has passed and the only time you really spend is either sleeping in the same bed or drinking a late warm beverage together. Only on weekends do you ever really spend time, time that you two spent on talking and slowly getting to know each other. Though, Nanami noticed you still tend to avoid getting too deep about things. He wasn't much better with talking about his past either, so he understands.

OldestSon!Nanami, who during one of the weekends, takes you to yet another hang out with his friends and juniors. It was a small get-together a Gojo’s. Everyone, except for those driving, was a tad bit (or really) drunk. Nanami avoided drinking and you did not drink either. You were allergic.

OldestSon!Nanami who kept you in eye distance even when he knew everyone. Who felt so fucking jealous when Gojo and Geto leaned into your space to hear you over the music and loud juniors. Who pretended to “fix” your sleeve, his hand grazing the wedding ring to clean it. Nanami, who makes quick glaring eye contact with Gojo and Geto, before stepping away from you.

YoungestDaughter!Reader who isn’t dumb about what just happened. She can assume what just occurred, but she still has her big doubts. The little touch of her ring, in front of two other good-looking men (who are Nanami’s friends), left her a little speechless, but she brushes it off. Because what if it was just that simple a brush of her rings and no thought to it? 

OldestSon!Nanami who would get you everything and anything you need, even when you always refused to want anything. Never asking. Never relying. Always being okay with anything. Who notices that you always getting something on the cheaper side.

YoungestDaughter!Reader who grew to be on her own and not rely on others. Who has a hard time letting others do anything for her. Who feels overwhelmed every time Nanami takes her out because she really cannot get used to him paying for things. Her solution? Anything cheap. 

OldestSon!Nanami and YoungestDaughter!Reader who try to unknowingly dance around the other, trying to adjust to what the other feels comfortable with. OldestSon!Nanami and YoungestDaughter!Reader who have been sleeping facing each other for a month and a half. You take a glimpse of him before closing your eyes.. And Nanami taking one last look at your peaceful, sleeping face before succumbing to sleep.

----

Credits for the characters to Gege Akutami, but this plot and these versions of the character are of my own (maybe OOC sometimes), so please refrain from plagiarizing.

I am currently NOT posting this elsewhere, so if there are works of thse anywhere else, let me know!

Thank you for reading!

[lesbianalanwake]

Severance S2E2:

--holy shit. I see why the season is 10 episodes instead of 9. two episodes to resolve the S1 finale and wind up to the pitch. there was so much legwork in this episode, and so much tension that I could barely sit still.

--I hope they paid Milchick a big overtime bonus in addition to his new salary!!! man did all that in 48 hours!!!

--Mark and Devon.... Mark being in denial about the possibility that Mark S could have been talking about Gemma, when we later see that it's been weighing on him heavily and he needed to talk to Cobel to confront it. it's such a small, small hope.... if he believes in the possibility that Gemma is alive, and it turns out that she is not, it would destroy him completely, and he's already come so close to destroying himself while grieving the first time. but Devon! Devon is so sharp! she knows her brother, and she glimpsed a younger, lighter version of her brother that she hasn't seen in a long time, and she clocked his tone and body language and everything about the situation correctly! and she can't live with the unanswered question of whether Gemma could be alive, because she misses her sister-in-law and misses who her brother used to be! she can't stop thinking about it while Mark is doing everything in his power to not think about it! aaaaah!

--Cobel bookending this episode by being as unhinged and mysterious as ever. we don't even know if she accepted the advisory council position! what is she up to! the final scene is so fucking good because I was like "I bet she's thinking about hitting Mark with her car," and then she screams like a bat out of hell and almost does just that LMAO. and she's still telling him to quit, even though Lumon is doing something significant with Gemma and "Cold Harbor," enough that they need Mark back to finish it, and Cobel knows what it is and wants something from it, and now Mark knows for sure that Gemma is alive because he needed to look Cobel in the eye and ask. I love their weird fucking dynamic. she's so fucking mad at Lumon, but maybe cares about Mark in her own unhinged way?? and his feelings were HURT that she lied to him because he went straight for the only thing that could maybe hurt her feelings a little bit in turn ("I ate your shitty fucking cookies").

--makes me hope that Cobel gets a "villain turned weird ally" arc, and that Milchick is right behind her, because he's already getting a taste of how thankless the severed floor manager position is, getting no guidance beyond "let Kier guide your heart" and having to defend the feat he managed to pull together in 48 hours.

--which brings me to: HELENA. HELENAAA. class traitor arc INCOMING. the "behind the scenes" bit reinforced this too: she is living in a gilded cage (the shot of her on the top floor with the windows acting as bars!) and seeing that her innie of all people gets affection and respect in a way that she never has, and she is enthralled. you can do it baby! I hope you kill your dad!

- I'm glad they clarified that the correct term for complex innie/outie romantic dynamics is "throuple" because Mark/Helly is finally compelling. by itself = eh. as part of Helena's development and possibly some kind of villainous fixation that can't possibly end well no matter how you slice it because Mark/Mark S is also going through a throuple thing with his dead wife who is actually alive, and don't think I've forgotten whatever thing that Helena and Milchick had going on in S1 (which is the only thing I was missing from this ep and hope they revisit) = now we're cooking with gas. not to mention Burt spying on Irving! throuples for days.

--tentatively believing that it really is Helena down there, and they sent her to play the part of Helly R to keep Mark complacent so that Cold Harbor gets finished, because Helly is too much of an unpredictable wild card but Helena is controllable (for now!). which would add another juicy flavor to Mark/Helly. they really did it, they really made the ship pop.

--it is so, so compelling how innies/outies are opposites. Helly is bold and rebellious, Helena is calm and subservient. Mark S is sweet and mild-mannered, Mark is cold and sarcastic. Dylan G is confident and driven, Dylan George is nervous and hesitant. Irving B is obedient and proper, Irving Bailiff is defiant and unconventional. and yet! bits of the other shine through, and we see it more and more, and they're slowly but surely on a collision course.

--the Good Doors interviewer says "you remind me of myself" and looks like Dylan, and I love this show because I can't tell if it's to continue the visual motif of doubling/reflections and show a "what could have been" path for Dylan, or if it's because there is truly something FUCKED going on across this whole town. or both.

--Lumon is in such a precarious position. they're a major global corporation, and they have politicians in their pocket, but there is also a lot of hostility and mistrust from the general public, enough to make a severed employee unhireable. (which further entraps their employees and keeps them dependent on Lumon.... Dylan. 😭) Lumon has to walk a fine line to continue, uh, whatever it is they're doing, without turning the public against them in a way that they couldn't recover from, hence the placating attempts at damage control. but all it would take would be a sufficiently strong spark to light that powder keg.

--because like, man.... I hope Helena and Cobel and Milchick all get their "fuck you Lumon" arcs. god. so many threads poised to unravel out of control and snap with the right push because the line that Lumon is walking is THIN. they do the most to try to control their severed employees, but they seem to take their non-severed employees for granted, and I'm wondering if that will be their undoing.