#but my keyboard is shitting itself and dying | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

1kook · 4 years ago

Text

crunchyroll & rail

the 10th installment of my netflix & chill series !

SUMMARY Never mind the fact you really like Sailor Moon, or that you really want to pay attention to every little detail; the moment becomes Jungkook and his big smile and his red cheeks and the tiny box he produces from within his pocket. WARNINGS smut in the forms of making out, jk nipple play, some 69 action, cunnilingus, blowjobs, brief choking, jk trying his best to listen to oc but he doesn’t rlly :/, fingering, missionary bc his eyes are pretty, unprotected fuckin raw, its romantic but when is it not… MISC fluffy and domestic <3, weekend getaway <3, the Big Question, shy jk, sailor moon supremacy, jk makes this big elaborate speech about the sun and moon, mentions of 240p YouTube quality, RATING m (18+) WC 8.7k

NOTE (!) the smut in this chapter is relatively short ! I was more concerned with writing this monumental step in their relationship, so sorry to all the lads who come here specifically for the p0rn but today we focus on the l0ve <333 anyway nc 10!!!!! Can u fuckin believe….

Jungkook mentions it at the dinner table one night. You’re not eating— well, you are not eating; Jungkook has been stocking up on his protein intake like a madman —but finishing up some work you had brought home. Your back aches, your eyes burn. The mere sound of his soft voice has all those feel-good endorphins shooting through your nervous system like a shot of adrenaline. “We should take a trip,” he says, fork clattering against his plate to signify the end of his feast.

Your fingers tap across your keyboard, eyes flickering between an Excel sheet and the report you’re typing out. It takes you a moment to respond, a delayed, “huh,” that even Jungkook doesn’t find convincing.

In the background, you’re listening to what has to be one of the worst voiceovers of the original Sailor Moon series in a language you don’t even understand. But you know the series like the back of your hand, know what exactly is happening even if you don’t understand what they’re saying, because you’ve watched it only about a million times. It’s mostly just there for background purposes anyway, some white noise to try and replicate the noisy soundtrack of your office.

To make matters worse—complicated?—, you had been too lazy to get onto your usual pirating sites and had settled for the five minute, five part, 240p clips of Sailor Moon on YouTube (you know the ones), and Jungkook has to wait until Episode 74: Part ⅖ ends before you grace him with a proper response. “Where do you wanna go, baby?” you ask, giving your eyes a break from the data as you move to scour YouTube for Episode 74: Part 3/5.

He’s stretching back now, arms wound up above his head. His hair— god, his hair —is an ashy color now, a faded version of its golden ancestor from a few months ago. Soon, he’s planning on going back to brown, claims he’s getting too old to be dying his hair, whatever that means. For now, you watch his inked fingers run through his scalp; he looks delectable. Maybe you’re hungrier than you initially thought. Or at least thirstier. “A cabin,” he suggests, and he offers this little half shrug that would otherwise seem normal had you not been well-versed in the art of Jungkook Body Language. His front teeth nibble at his lip, eyes laser focused on his empty plate. Even now, he still gets nervous asking you out. That thought alone makes your ego soar as high as an airplane. “Just something small.”

Usually, “something small” with Jungkook ends up being something big and, in most cases, something expensive. Which you’re totally not opposed to— you’re at the point in your relationship where you don’t even bother trying to dissuade Jungkook from showering you with gifts. It’s one of his many, many, many, many forms of loving you and, well, he knows you like the back of his hand. He rarely misses.

Lo and behold, it is a grander affair than a simple cabin. “Well, it’s more like a resort,” he confesses, reaching across the table for your hand. Immediately, his thumb finds itself rubbing over the simple band of your promise ring. “Just wanna do something nice for you. I know you’ve been tired lately,” he adds on, voice a quiet murmur that nearly gets lost under the intensity of the pout that appears whenever he becomes even the slightest bit bashful.

You smile, the fondness in your heart skyrocketing to impossible heights when he lifts your hand to press those pretty petal lips against your knuckles. “Well, just let me know when,” you tell Jungkook. “So I can request time off from work.”

Episode 74: Part 3/5 starts playing after an ad, and you’d pause it for the sake of preserving this moment with Jungkook, but it’s hidden under so many tabs on your laptop that you lose it the second you leave the tab. Jungkook’s head tilts to the side, sending his ashy locks cascading beautifully. “You know that show is on Crunchyroll,” Jungkook says, seemingly moving past his bout of shyness now. “And you have the password.”

“Do I,” you murmur, but he’s lost you once more, your true talent of typing with one hand showing itself as you return to your Excel sheet, the other still firmly squeezed in his grasp. Jungkook releases soon enough anyway, cleans up the table quickly, and disappears off into the kitchen. He sings when he washes the dishes, likes to pretend he’s a terrible singer even though you’ve told him countless times he could easily take X Factor by storm. (And you know exactly what it takes to wow those judges— you spent the entire last month psychotically watching multiple X Factor seasons from multiple different countries, nearly considered joining the damn audition yourself.) The horribly dubbed Sailor Moon is yelling now, shrieking really, and Jungkook calls from the kitchen, “don’t forget to take your contacts out, sweetheart.”

It’s domestic and it's nerve-wracking.

You want Jungkook, that much is a fact. Aristotle and Socrates and that other guy could debate the philosophical intricacies of the world, turn this dimension in on itself until it was a scrambled mess of emotion and thought, but the one thing they could never change, could never even question, is your love for your boyfriend. You want Jungkook badly, but more importantly, you want Jungkook forever.

And you’re sure Jungkook probably, maybe, hopefully feels that way too. But the way you feel is… slightly concerning to say the least. For starters, you’re convinced your love for Jungkook was meant to be, and that’s saying a lot coming from you. You’re not one for cheesy, soulmate tales— that was more Jungkook’s thing —but the more you think about it, the more you become convinced that you and Jungkook were destined to meet. Like the planets aligned one year, the stars conferred, a tectonic plate somewhere in California shifted; whatever it may have been, something happened somewhere that led to the birth of this beautiful romance of yours.

Lately, being with Jungkook has this inexplicably fiery feeling blossoming in your chest, these waves of emotion that sometimes have you fantasizing about the weirdest of scenarios with him. Like yelling at him for not taking the garbage out on time, or bumping into each other as you make dinner in the kitchen, or buying a new rug together.

(Most drastically, the other day, you had a dream where you were pregnant and Jungkook was there and there was a house and a dog and an annoyingly friendly neighbor and this god-awful tile in the bathroom.)

Long story short, you’ve been fantasizing about a forever with Jungkook. The concerning part is the timing; was this too early? You’re nearly halfway through your second year with Jungkook now, and you know most people date for many, many years before the mere thought of union even occurs to them. In another life, maybe you were the same, would have held off until the very last moment. But with Jungkook things just feel right (at least for you), like there wasn’t going to be anyone else after him. And you sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be.

You slump back into your seat, eyes fluttering shut. Too many thoughts swirl around your mind, and the screech of the Sailor Moon voiceover on screen certainly doesn’t help. How you managed to spiral that far down your thoughts in the span of one 240p, five minute clip of a larger episode amazes even you. To add onto your worries, the clip abruptly ends and Episode 74: Part ⅘ is nowhere in sight, a fact that draws a frustrated moan out of the already sensitive you.

Luckily, Jungkook eventually returns, standing closely behind you. His presence is enormous, the room suddenly overflowing with a shit ton of those feel-good endorphins all over again, except this time they reach an all-time high when he leans over and quietly shuts your laptop. “Come sleep,” he says softly, and it’s a pleasant mixture of his genuinely caring voice and that horndog purr of his that lures you into bed. And it’s that same voice that croons softly into your ear, fingers nestled between your folds until you’re orgasming yourself into a deep slumber.

Much to no one’s surprise, the cabin turns out to be quite the luxurious lodging; two floors of dark oak everywhere you turn, a stunning stone fireplace in the bedroom, and a truly breathtaking view of the resort’s snowy hill (read: front row seats to watch all the snowboarders and skiers wipe out in the snow). Jungkook had splurged quite the pretty penny on it, so you make a point to clap it up for him when he first opens the door to your temporary home for the weekend.

The main bedroom is beyond words. It’s got an attached balcony (that you doubt you’ll be using in this chilly weather), and a wooden canopy bed that makes you feel like a royal (that you will certainly be using). It’s separated into two areas, the bed space and a tiny entertainment area on the other side of the room. Perhaps the best thing about the room— and the cabin itself —is the huge, smart TV mounted above said stone fireplace and the fact it allows the phone mirroring option in lieu of not having any streaming sites. And as is with every and anything to do with televisions, Jungkook is the most excited of the two of you. “Baby, look,” he beams, pointing excitedly at whatever he’s got mirrored onto the television this time. Knowing him, it’s probably another documentary.

You had the forethought to finish your work before the trip, spent two days in the office going absolutely ham on this month’s final reports until your department head promptly sent you home to finish the rest there. You had given yourself a fright upon entering the bathroom that night, the state of your under eyes so severe, you feared it was sufficient cause for a national emergency. Similarly, Jungkook had done the same with his work, cooped himself up in his study until he was free from the shackles of capitalism for the weekend. All this to say you’ve missed him these past few days.

But even though you’re sorely malnourished in the affection department and craving a good kiss or two, you wouldn’t dare interrupt one of Jungkook’s little nerdy, tech-induced fanboy moments. They’re cute, in their own geeky way, providing some insight to a mellower side of your boyfriend who looks on with childlike wonder; Jungkook’s eyes always get so big when he talks about nerdy stuff. You get to work hanging up the silk shirt he packed for tomorrow night’s fancy dinner at the resort, listening to some British narrator’s detailed description of the functionally extinct Northern white rhinos living under 24-hour surveillance in Kenya.

(Jungkook’s really into nature documentaries again, had spent a few nights sniffling as he watched that one Koko the gorilla film.)

The original plan was to head to the nearest store and whip up something small to eat at the cabin. But Jungkook is a little tired from the long drive, slumps down into the couch in front of the now lit fireplace like a limbless blob as he tunes into his documentary. His nose is a little red from the outside chill. It’s so cute. He’s so cute. You love him so much, you fear you’ll accidentally squeeze his cheeks to death. It’s a thought that occurs more times than you’d like.

According to the pamphlet on the nightstand, the resort has its own room-service to order from. Normally you would do that, but not this time; you had gotten into a bit of a squabble with the man at the front desk after he had tried to withhold Jungkook’s reservation for arriving two minutes past your check-in time, called each other all sorts of names before he backed down and gave you your room key. So you’re still a little salty, to say the least. Instead, you settle in for some pizza in front of the huge TV, calling up the nearest place to order some of Jungkook’s and your favorites.

You plop down beside him, instinctively cuddling closer when he wraps an arm around your shoulders. “So,” you start, flipping through the rest of the resort’s introductory pamphlet. There’s a loud roar on screen. In all honesty, you didn’t even know what Northern white rhinos sounded like until then, and you probably never would have if not for the man beside you. “What are you in the mood for tonight, sweet boy?”

You’re not sure if it’s the fatigue or the overall relaxed vibes he’d been exuding since the moment you entered the cabin, but Jungkook is weirdly cooperative today. “Whatever you want,” he responds, head on your shoulder. He even places the remote in your hands, gives your enclosed fist a gentle tap as if he’s just handed you the secret to eternal youth. In other words, it’s a rare sight to behold. “This is your trip, pretty girl.”

You appreciate the sentiment, but feel the need to clear the air, tucking your feet up onto the couch as you snuggle closer. “Our trip,” you clarify, and snatch the remote anyway before he changes his mind.

Jungkook releases a quiet huff of laughter, head rolling back against the couch cushions to display his thick, juicy neck that definitely doesn’t awaken any vampiric tendencies in you. “We can even watch some anime if you want,” he murmurs, casually throwing an arm around your shoulders in a way that would have made any teenage girl in the early 2000s squeal with excitement. It’s one of those barely there touches, but the way he holds you makes you feel so safe and warm and loved. So loved and in love. “The ones on Crunchyroll, though.”

For the sake of preserving these good vibes (and your ears [and Jungkook’s sanity]), you navigate to the Crunchyroll app on your phone, quickly finding your latest obsession and mirroring it onto the big television before Jungkook can react. “Sailor Moon?” he asks with a tone that implies a feigned interest, mostly out of respect for you; he’s, sadly, still not the big dorky anime fan you had hoped to convert him into.

“In the name of the moon, I’ll punish you,” you recite dutifully, snatching up the throw blanket on the end of the couch. It’s barely big enough to cover the both of you, has Jungkook’s outstretched legs and your booty subject to the chilly air. Who cares, Jungkook is a furnace anyway.

He snorts. “Punish me,” he mumbles, as if he doesn’t believe it. His snarky comment wins him a playful pinch against his doughy cheek, not that he particularly defends himself against it anyway, eyes fluttering shut as you tug at the pale skin.

“Don’t fuck with the moon, Jungkook,” you warn him, snuggling closely against his side as your favorite opening song begins filtering through the speakers of the television before you. It’s infinitely better than the 240p YouTube clips you had subjected yourself to the entire last week, the graphics scarily clear.

“Right, of course,” Jungkook says, but a hint of amusement seems to curl around the sound anyway. Nevertheless, he lets it go, cuddles into your side as you pour your full focus into watching yet another group of ragtag teenagers with supernatural abilities kick some ass.

You can tell Jungkook isn’t really into it, and you’re torn between just snuggling him into a well deserved nap or taping his eyelids open so he can become a fan of this show with you.

The loving, caring, adoring side of you says Jungkook deserves the entire world and more (the more in question preferably being a fluffy blanket and a nap). He worked hard this week, just like you, and on top of that he was the one who planned this entire weekend getaway for the two of you to enjoy. You want him to rest up.

The obnoxiously in love girlfriend-slash-best friend in you says Jungkook is sorely missing out on one of the greatest shows on planet Earth and that naps are for the weak.

Your jumbled thoughts are interrupted by a loud sound on the television, a yelp from Ms. Sailor Moon herself that has you jolting up in surprise. Jungkook welcomes you deeper into his embrace, chuckles at your little fright. “Scared?” he teases in that low voice that makes you feel like you’re going crazy, really. So crazy and irrational, and the only thing that stops you from bombarding him with an unexpected outpouring of love is that hard and sharp thing that pokes your side when you get too close to him. It’s not Jungkook, sadly, but something in the front pocket of his hoodie instead.

And for some reason, part of your brain is stuck all of a sudden, rewinding the last two and a half years like a broken cassette tape that had the tape reel hastily stuffed back inside by a toddler. It’s choppy to say the least, and it certainly doesn’t help when Jungkook calls your name softly, tenderly. “__,” he murmurs. It’s a little weird; it’s not often he says your name, mostly referring to you with one of the many pet names from that part of his vocabulary that focuses exclusively on terms of endearment. Your heart skips a beat.

Now, if anyone were to ask, it’s approximately around this time that you begin to spiral. The pink curve of his bottom lip is just too close, the mole on his nose too prominent. Paired with the obnoxious tittering of Usagi on screen, you can feel your thoughts begin to overlap, bumping into each other within the realm of your brain until all that comes out are the messiest of messy thoughts.

They go like this:

Most episodes of any anime run for approximately thirty minutes. Take out the commercial breaks, the opening and ending credits, and it becomes something closer to twenty. Twenty minutes per episode, filled with plot and gags and tears and whatever else necessary to make you feel something, anything really.

“What’s in your pocket?” you ask tentatively.

In contrast, it takes approximately two seconds for Jungkook’s lips to quirk up— first the right side, always the right side —and his eyes to crinkle. Two seconds for him to smile, a sweet expression that reminds you of Netflix and college and quiet laughter and tattoos and silly YouTube videos and cookies and cell phones and job applications and blond hair; two seconds to make you feel everything all at once.

“There’s nothing,” he says, but his cheeks are pink, and it’s not from the cold anymore. His smile is so big it makes your own cheeks ache just looking at it. You can’t even hear the television anymore. Never mind the fact you really like Sailor Moon, or that you really want to pay attention to every little detail; the moment becomes Jungkook and his big smile and his red cheeks and the tiny box he produces from within his pocket. “It was supposed to be for tomorrow,” he admits, unwrapping his arm from around you.

It’s a little funny, somehow, because his hands are covered in ink, in tiny doodles and intricate pieces of swirls and words that ooze this aura of strength and toughness. But they tremble when he opens it, as unsteady as a wispy dandelion on a windy day, fumbling with the box. And when you look closely, he’s been biting at the skin along his thumb again, that nervous habit you’ve been trying forever to help him overcome.

Someone is saying something on screen, something important to the plot. The volume is loud, but not as loud as your heart. Not as loud as Jungkook’s quiet murmur when he speaks again. “Will you marry me?” he asks softly, looks at you with flushed cheeks and big eyes and his heart on his sleeve.

The answer has always been the same, hasn’t changed since the first time he planted the seed in your mind. Still, it catches in your throat, nearly loses out to a surprised and emotional sob that you barely manage to bite down. You had just been speaking, had just been ready to deliver a whole spiel on the importance of him watching Sailor Moon with you. But when you try now, it’s raspy and dry, as if you haven’t used your voice in years. “I— yes,” you exhale, surprised by the lonely tear that trails down your cheek. You go to wipe it away, but Jungkook beats you with a gentle hand cupping your cheek.

His smile is wobbly, patches of red blossoming across his face that eventually consume his entire appearance as he leans his forehead against yours. Only then do you realize he’s crying, and you laugh out of reflex. “You’re crying,” you say, and Jungkook snorts.

“You cried first,” he sniffles, smiling. “You made me cry.”

He looks like a wreck, but, like, a hot wreck. An engaged, hot wreck who’s eyes flicker back to the TV to remind you to pause your anime, always so considerate. You do, hastily smashing buttons on the remote before remembering it’s controlled by your phone, hands flying back and forth as your nerves actively work to retire themselves after Jungkook’s proposal. “Easy there,” he soothes, eventually catching your hand in his, drawing it up for a kiss against your knuckles.

The ring fits perfectly, snuggly. Vaguely, a memory drifts through your thoughts of Jungkook and Doyeon on a rampant mission to reorganize your jewelry box a few months ago, but it disappears as quickly as it came. You’re taken by the ring, a simple band with a pretty diamond on top. It’s a good mixture of you and him; flashy yet mild.

“You love me,” you marvel, a revelation you’ve had the honor of experiencing time and time again with Jungkook. Still, it never fails to render you speechless. He hums.

“I do,” he says, taking your hand in his. “It’s the easiest thing for me. Like breathing, or existing. I think I was made to love you.” And normally, you’d be the first one to correct him. Jungkook was made for so much more, a fact he’s proven time and time again with his abilities and the sheer size of his heart. He was your golden boy, could do anything he set his mind to. Always amazing you, always making you fall in love all over again.

But now, with the weight of his words sitting heavy in the air, you find yourself incapable of negating the fact, instead sniffling at the meaning.

Pleased with your silence, Jungkook places another chaste kiss against your ring. “I love you, __,” he confesses, voice nearly a whisper. Your entire body feels as if it is doused in gasoline, lit aflame over and over again. Your heart threatens your rib cage, pounds away with the strength of a world renowned boxer. Jungkook’s hands curl around your wrists carefully. “I used to think we were like the moon and the sun,” he admits, “that you were my sun and I was your moon. In love but always separated by those thin veils of the sunrise and the sunset.” He pauses, nuzzling sweetly against your palm once more before gently guiding them down between the two of you. “But that really sucks— saying goodbye to you every night? I hate that, __. I hate watching you leave, I hate watching you run off in the mornings or halfway through the day, having to drive back and forth from your place to mine. I hate having to be away from you when all I wanna do is hold you. I— I want to be by your side,” he rambles, eyes nervously meeting yours. They’re still glassy, dark lashes framing his chocolate irises wonderfully. “Forever.”

Your heartbeat stutters, the simple word looping itself in your mind like that night in his dining room all over again, all the fantasies of having a forever with Jungkook bubbling to the surface. Jungkook pushes on. “You are my sun,” he says softly, mostly to himself. “But… I don’t wanna be the moon anymore. Being the moon means, eventually, I’ll have to say goodbye. In the night or in the morning, it always comes to an end. And I don't want there to be an end with you,” he insists, clutching your hand tightly. “I wanna be another star, the closest one to you. The one who gets to be with you forever. I wanna be by you and shine with you and—“

“Explode into a gazillion little fragments of cosmic dust with me,” you offer, and Jungkook nods along eagerly, too amped up on his speech to bother scolding you for your playful comment.

“Yes, I want to— to—“ The words catch in his throat. So much emotion from the man you once thought was the dictionary definition of calm and collected. “To—“

“Marry me,” you fill in, and Jungkook practically blows a fuse from how emotionally fired up he’s become, exclaiming a resolute, “yes!” that leaves you stupidly grinning back at him.

His outburst leaves him with flushed cheeks. “I do,” he reiterates in a softer tone, averting his gaze from you as if embarrassed by his cheesy outpouring of emotion. Usually, it’s the other way around; you make all the corny declarations of love and Jungkook laughs along suavely. It feels nice to have the tables turned.

There’s so much to say, but the words all fade away when Jungkook shyly looks at you again. You settle on tackling him back onto the couch cushions, taking his surprised little yelp in stride as you suffocate him in your embrace. “Save those words for the big day, superstar,” you giggle, peppering his red face with tiny kisses that make him scrunch up cutely. “I can’t wait to blow up into one huge supernova with you.”

Beneath you, Jungkook groans. “I’m sorry,” he huffs, voice muffled against your shoulder. Begrudgingly, his arms come up to envelope you, pulling you closer until the blanket scrunches up uncomfortably between you two. “That must’ve sounded so lame.”

Leaning back so you’re not completely squishing him, you carefully push his silvery hair away from his forehead. “Don’t be,” you assure him, placing one chaste peck against his pouty lips. “I thought it was cute. I didn’t know you were into astrology.”

A sigh. “Astronomy,” he corrects, “astrology has to do with zodiac signs and placements.”

You run your thumbs over his cheeks, collecting any of the drying tears that paint his face. “Oh, like how you’re a Virgo and I’m a“—

The TV remote you had lost somewhere along the way is suddenly rematerialized beneath your knee, sends the speakers blaring to life with a deafening screech that has both you and Jungkook leaping up like two frightened cats. “You always do this,” he laughs, that loud boyish sound that makes you feel like you’re sitting on a cloud. He watches you with a gentle smile as you hurriedly shut off the television, the remote haphazardly tossed somewhere behind you afterwards. You return to his embrace, wrap your arms around his waist and snuggle into his warmth. His heart thumps a steady rhythm beneath your ear.

“You’re gonna be stuck with me forever,” you warn him, clutching at the fabric of his shirt like he’ll suddenly disintegrate before your eyes.

Above you, Jungkook hums, placing a kiss against the crown of your head. “I look forward to it,” he responds, pulling you impossibly closer, until you can feel the wrinkles in his shirt imprinting themselves against your cheek. He’s back to being that suave bastard again, and you find yourself wishing you had milked those big crocodile tears out of him for just a little bit longer.

Fingers gently press against the muscles in your nape, push themselves in deeply until you can feel all the tension seeping out, turning you into a limbless blob over Jungkook. “Jeez,” you sigh, eyes fluttering shut. “And you wanted to wait until tomorrow.”

He huffs out a laugh. “I just thought you’d rather get engaged at a fancy restaurant with a pretty dress,” he defends, and you can hear the grin on his face. “For the photos.”

“Fair point,” you concede, eventually pushing yourself up so you’re not entirely squishing your boyfriend beneath you. Jungkook is already looking at you when you lift your head, has got this funny double-chin from this angle that makes his normally sharp jawline disappear. You find yourself tapping a finger against his chin, on the chocolate chip mole that hides itself beneath his plump bottom lip. “If anything, just propose to me again tomorrow at the restaurant.”

It wins you an eye-roll. “I’m not gonna propose to you again tomorrow,” he laughs, doesn’t even push you away when you become annoying and start tapping your fingers against all his beauty marks like you’re playing Whack-a-Mole.

“Booo,” you frown, but let it go soon enough, foregoing your little game to press your lips against his. “Then I better make this a night to remember,” you murmur, tilting your head to the side.

Your hands dip into his luscious locks, fingernails tracing thin lines along his scalp that are certain to send tingles down his spine. As predicted, Jungkook releases a quiet groan soon after, a sound that’s muffled against your own lips. He’s pliant tonight, but not in a way that would elude fatigue. Pliant in a way that suggests he wants you to take the reins tonight, exhaling softly against you as he parts his lips.

“Let me take care of you,” you hum, the hand that had been mindlessly hovering along his cheek drifting down to caress the side of his neck. Jungkook nods, his irises swimming in lust. You smile at his silent compliance, give his throat a light squeeze that makes his breathing hitch in surprise.

He’s always at his prettiest when he’s beneath you like this, limbs moving in slow motion as you guide him along. You can already feel the beginnings of his arousal stirring beneath the front of his sweats, his cock slowly making its presence known against your thigh. You press your lips against his once more, making sure to make it rougher than the first kiss. Your tongue is met with little resistance, slips past his lips and dips into the hot cave of his mouth where Jungkook releases another trembling breath.

Two hands come up behind you, trail themselves over your back and down to your ass, where he gives the two globes a tight squeeze. It draws a whimper out of you, one that Jungkook greedily swallows up. His tongue rubs up along yours, the wet muscle daringly pushing back against yours. His rebelliousness is only quelled with another press of your fingertips around his throat.

“Slow down,” you tell him. The first roll of your hips against him is slow, cruel in that you cut the motion short just as Jungkook begins to push back. A bratty huff escapes him, swollen pink lips pushing out into that endearing pout you love so much. It makes you grin, releasing the grip around his throat to carefully brush a stray strand of hair away from his eyes.

It’s a gesture that works to soften Jungkook as well, the petulant look on his face melting away as you trail your pointer finger along his cheekbone. It’s replaced with a more tender one, dark lashes blinking up at you slowly. “Open,” you command upon reaching his mouth, finger pressing down against his pink lower lip. Jungkook obeys, opening his mouth until you can see his pink tongue and the dark abyss that leads down his throat. Your finger pushes itself in, and Jungkook certainly doesn’t try to resist. His lips suction around the digit fairly quickly, tight enough to keep you there but loose enough for you to slowly draw your finger in and out, each short plunge pressing down against his tongue.

It’s a rather short affair, one that comes to an end when he accidentally bucks up against you, pressing his hardened member against your core. You retract your finger. “Can you,” he tries, but his cheeks are stained red and he refuses to meet your gaze. “Just…”

You intercept him with a chaste peck, maneuvering your legs until your knees are firmly pressed into the couch cushions beneath him, his thin waist trapped in between. When you sit up, you feel drunk on power and the way Jungkook looks up at you certainly doesn’t help. “Can I sit on your face?”

He chokes. “I— sure, please,” he blurts out. His gaze follows you as you slip off of him, quickly discarding your pants and top on the floor. One pat against his thigh has him hurrying to shimmy out of his clothes, his sweatpants caught around his ankles.

“You’re excited,” you laugh, stripping him of his bottoms when the frustration takes him over.

Jungkook scoffs. “Well, yeah,” he mumbles, tugging his shirt off with one smooth motion. The ink around his bicep is as dark as ever, contrasts wonderfully against his warm face. “My fiancée is gonna sit on my face.”

The title makes you preen, quickly finding your place on his lap once more. With your clothing out of the way, Jungkook really does become a furnace. Every inch of his body is hot to the touch, soft too. “Fiancée,” you giggle, hands on his chest. They slide down, fingers playfully nudging his brown nipples. Jungkook flinches at the touch. “Gonna sit on my fiancé’s face,” you parrot back, delicately pinching one nipple between your fingers. A moan spills from his lips, his cock pushing against your thigh once more.

It’s the reminder you need, pushing back dutifully against him as you continue to toy with his chest. He’d look pretty with piercings, you find yourself thinking, watching on in fascination at the way his pert nipples stand at attention. Beneath you, Jungkook begins to grow desperate, his hands finding their place on your waist to encourage you to grind down against him once more.

Jungkook swears up and down that he’s not particularly sensitive about having his nipples touched. But when you’ve got him like this, sinfully laid out before you, you can easily confirm that his claims are nothing but lies. He loves having his nipples touched, squirms beneath you impatiently with each playful tug and twist you bestow upon them.

You duck down, pressing a kiss against his pectoral, just beside his nipple, and Jungkook’s entire body shivers. A few careful drags of your tongue against his warm skin only serve to string him along further, the prettiest whimper pulling itself from his lips when you finally envelope one of them in your mouth. “Wait,” he gasps, clawing at your clothing as if he both wants to push you off and push you closer. You grin, brandishing one mean nip at the sensitive nub.

Eventually, your incessant need to play with Jungkook’s chest is fulfilled. “Lay back,” you instruct, watching as he shuffles down flat on the cushions, silver hair tumbling away from his eyes. He’s so red, eyes hazy. Your panties are discarded, joining the ever growing pile of clothes on the floor.

Once upon a time, the idea of sitting on Jungkook’s face had terrified you, filled you with nightmares of crushing his windpipe or breaking his nose. For the most part, they’re pretty unrealistic fears, ones that can be easily shut down after one careful Google search on safe sexual practices. These days, it’s all too easy; in the mornings, especially, it’s become natural for him to guide you on top carefully, holding your hand as you whimper and sob over his face.

In the current moment, you find yourself stroking a hand down the side of his face, completely enamored with the huge puppy eyes he levels your way. Jungkook likes having your pussy in his face just as much as you do, loves making you feel good in any way he knows how. But there’s a separate matter at hand, one that stands at attention beneath his black boxers and successfully wins your attention.

Truthfully, there is no dilemma to ponder over; you want both to ride Jungkook’s face and suck him off. The solution?

“We’ve never done this before,” Jungkook mumbles in amazement, his voice slightly muffled from his position beneath you and slightly behind you. Still, his arms dutifully wrap around your thighs, guiding you closer to his mouth where his hot breath fans against your glistening folds. You rock back willingly, hands preoccupied with pushing his boxers down and away from his engorged cock.

“Really?” you ask, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with the cock before you and the tongue that gently laps at your folds. Jungkook makes a sound, something between a hum and whimper, his mouth slowly getting to work against your folds. “M- Maybe,” you stutter, all thought processes coming to a halt as you carefully take him in your hand.

His cock is hard and long, his tip an angry shade that weeps with precum. From this angle, you get to watch Jungkook’s huge thighs twitch at the sensation, the tattoo that marks up one of them doing little to hide the fact. Your hand squeezes him, watches in awe as another fat droplet oozes out of his tip. A moan tears itself from his throat, and it’s so goddamn sexy it nearly drives you insane.

It’s one particularly long lap of his tongue over your clit that sends you into action, back arching at the tingles that shoot down your spine. Wasting no more time, you guide Jungkook’s cock into your mouth, let your own tongue shower his mushroom tip in kitten licks that have him bucking upwards. He releases your clit with a lewd pop, hot breath fanning across your lips. “Fuck,” he gasps, voice harsh.

Admittedly, it’s more difficult than you thought it would be.

You’re not one to be easily overwhelmed (says you), but with Jungkook’s twitching cock in your mouth and his teasing tongue dipping into your entrance, it becomes hard to juggle your attention between the two. Even Jungkook, who is quite frankly the master of cunnilingus, seems torn between the two, his breathing shallow and quick against your folds.

With each slow descent around his cock, he shudders, thigh muscles tightening in anticipation. It causes a lull in the pace of his tongue, the generous kisses and licks against your folds subject to a somewhat uneven pace that, surprisingly, leaves you more on edge than you’d ever expected it to; right when you think he’s about to suck your clit into his mouth, you’re met with a harsh exhale instead, one that makes your lips flutter.

You’re both disappointed in yourselves for never having tried this mind-blowing position before, and equal parts understanding as to why you haven’t tried this position before— it’s a lot. His cock is halfway down your throat when it twitches, sends a gush of precum into your mouth that has your eyes rolling backwards, a whine slipping out around him. Jungkook appreciates the vibrations, letting it fuel him as he plunges his tongue into your hole. It’s a two way street, you realize, one that is constantly experiencing traffic.

“Baby,” you gasp, pulling off of his cock with a slick sound, hypnotized by the trail of saliva that connects your lips to his tip. Jungkook’s tongue prods along your slit, makes your eyesight go blurry when the tip of his nose brushes along you as well. The idea of his cute nose buried deep someplace it shouldn’t be has you grinding down on him. “We can— we should stop,” you stutter, your trembling hand reaching forward to grasp the base of his cock.

He’s slick with your saliva and his precum, and your hand makes a squelching sound upon contact. It must feel good, because Jungkook moans against your folds, his thighs unconsciously falling farther apart as you slowly jerk him off. You think you might’ve heard your name slip from his lips, but your mind is fuzzy, lost in your lust as Jungkook licks a sinful line from your hole to your clit, curling his tongue at the end. “J- Jungkook,” you cry, flinching away because it’s become too much, your toes curling as the beginnings of an orgasm threaten you.

Before that can happen, he relents, leaning back with a heavy exhale, his hands loosening their grip against your ass and plopping back down against the cushions. “Fuck,” he pants, his cock twitching in your hold. A lonely droplet of precum trails down the side, your knuckles coated in the glossy substance. Beneath you, Jungkook rubs one soothing palm against your hip.

You slink off before he can get any funny ideas, maneuver yourself around until you’re kneeling between his parted thighs, his fat cock standing at attention between the two of you. From here, he looks ravenous, and you begin to question who exactly is taking care of who. Jungkook looks like he’s a second away from pinning you down and swallowing you whole, a thought that makes your toes curl.

It’s with a cautiously horny hand that you reach for his cock again, holding him with both hands. Jungkook growls, head lolling backwards until all you can see is his neck and his chin, thick veins protruding along his skin. Jungkook doesn’t waste a moment longer. “C’mere,” he purrs, hauling you up until you’re clumsily leaning over him, palms framing his face. A lone finger runs down your spine, its faint touch making you arch forward. “Sorry,” he says, securing an arm around your waist. “I know you wanted to take care of me, but…”

You roll your eyes, submitting yourself to his clutches as he masterfully rolls the two of you over. The couch is soft beneath your back, and Jungkook looks pretty from above too. “You just can’t sit still, can you?” you murmur playfully.

Jungkook’s forearms find their place beneath your thighs, the fold of the back of your knee perfectly slotted against his warm skin as he shuffles closer. “Maybe another time,” he laughs along sheepishly, his hard cock gliding over your slit, teasing your clit. You gulp, eyes scanning over his lean build as if it’s the first time. “Sorry,” he repeats, but he’s got this stupidly dopey grin on his face as he glances down at your pussy; he’s insane, he’s got to be, what man makes heart eyes at a pussy?

Your man, apparently. Grasping the base of his cock, Jungkook takes care to drag it along your folds collecting your wetness along his length, a deep shudder wracking his body through it all. “I knew you would do this to me,” he mutters, so low you nearly miss it under the thundering sound of your heartbeat.

“Huh,” you mumble, and you’d like to defend yourself and say you weren’t as cock-crazy as Jungkook was coochie-crazy, but that would be a lie. You’re staring at his cock as if it holds the secrets to the universe right now.

Jungkook juts his head to the side, a motion similar to the one he does when he’s trying to crack his neck. His tongue prods along his cheek, eyes laser-focused on the point where your two bodies meet. “From the moment you walked into my house,” he grunts mindlessly, finally lining himself up with your entrance. He chances a glance up, meets your gaze with a patient look, “all good?”

“All good,” you hurriedly reply, fingers finding their place against his broad shoulders. With the way he had prepared you earlier, mouthed along your clit and your folds until you were pleasantly aroused, the glide now is too easy. Tight, but easy, has the two of you releasing twin moans that echo off the wooden walls of the cabin.

Jungkook’s forehead is covered in a thin veil of sweat, one that glistens when the evening sunset pours in through the balcony doors, highlighting him in a golden light that makes you dizzy. The angry tip of his cock sinks into your walls, Jungkook’s ashy strands sticking to his forehead and his cheeks. For some reason, you find yourself reminiscing on the aforementioned moment Jungkook had spoken of. Of the soft sweater he’d worn that day and the dinner he had made, the blond tips on his chestnut hair and the way he’d clung onto every word you’d said.

It makes you tear up, and, after laughing at Jungkook early for crying, you quickly turn your face away.

Jungkook isn’t dumb. “What now,” he chuckles, though his breathing is labored, every inch of his cock that penetrates you further bringing with it another rush of adrenaline. At the hilt, you’re embarrassed to say there’s multiple tears streaming down your face, so you can’t even play it off as you usually do. “Crybaby,” Jungkook teases, but his voice is so soft and tender you don’t know what to do with yourself.

“Just move,” you bite out, shamefully covering your face with your hands. Jungkook leans over you, the movement pushing his dick deeper inside of you, your walls clenching around him. A kiss is placed over your knuckles, just shy of your engagement ring. Your chest lurches with a silent sob. “Jungkook,” you whimper, sinking further into the cushion, “please, just—“

“I got it,” he assures you, placing one final peck against your handmade (literally) shield. And then, so quietly you almost miss it, he makes sure to whisper, “love you,” before unsheathing himself.

You shudder, your heart feeling so full, you fear it’ll burst. You both love and hate when he treats you like this, like an ice sculpture in the scorching heat that has him doing everything he can to keep you solid. His touch is soft, the roll of his hips too slow for your liking. You feel so small and vulnerable— too pampered. “Harder,” you beg, your voice an airy whine that has Jungkook chuckling above you.

He lives to please you, hiking your leg over his shoulder with a renewed vigor. His hands find themselves on your waist, forcefully pinning you down against the couch cushions as he sets upon fulfilling your latest request. The next series of thrusts are jerky, have you jostling in his grip as Jungkook pounds into you with an all new mindset. “Lemme see you,” he huffs, thumbs painfully digging into your skin. You tremble in his arms, heart swayed by the quiet plea in his voice. “Let me see your face, pretty girl.”

Reluctantly, you do, brandishing your tear-stricken face his way. Jungkook smiles, that stupidly handsome smile, his hips snapping into you roughly. “Fuck,” he moans, the expression never leaving his face, even when run your nails over his chest harshly. “You’re so pretty.”

You ignore him for the sake of your already weakened mental state, focusing instead on the brutal force of his hips, the way his cock stretches your walls out. Each push has you seeing stars, thighs quivering from the sensations that shoot up your spine and down your toes. “Oh,” you mewl, hands gripping his biceps as you lose yourself to him. Your eyes roll back, vision a mess of colors and nothingness all at once.

“Is this hard enough?” Jungkook husks out, and he sounds so close. His proximity is confirmed when his mouth slots against yours, his harsh breath mingling with your own as he continues to frantically buck into your inviting heat, each new round of thrusts leaving you weaker and weaker than before. “God,” Jungkook cries, the sound nearly lost beneath your own moans and whimpers. “Gonna k- keep you forever,” he spits, tongue slipping into your mouth.

He’s messier than usual, moves with unrefined movements unlike his normal self. You don’t care, you love him all the same. His sloppy kisses turn into desperate ones, matching the pace of his hips. “Kook,” you sob, arms wrapping themselves around his neck, pulling him close until his thrusts are reduced to a shallower depth.

“I’ve got you,” he croons, lips against your jawline. His cock presses in and you swear you feel it alongside every inch of your walls, a warmth blossoming in your stomach. He’s layering messy kisses down your face now, lips sucking dark marks any chance he gets.

True to his word, Jungkook indeed has you. His cock pistons in and out at an astonishing pace, each surge into your folds making you dizzy over and over again. It’s a feeling you fear you’ll never grow tired of, in fact, it’s a feeling you fear you’ll begin to crave even more in the future. The good thing is, that future will extend into forever.

You yank him towards you, swallow his low laughter with your lips. Jungkook doesn’t complain, lowering himself until he’s practically squishing you beneath his beefy body, cock ramming in and out despite all that. His tongue glides along yours, makes it his mission to muffle each of your cries.

It doesn’t take long for you to be fulfilled. Given the fact you had sucked him off like a lollipop whilst having him eat you out, you’re not entirely surprised. That and the emotions of tonight have you melting into him sooner than you’d like, his name falling from your lips as your thighs clamp down around his waist. Jungkook takes it in stride, slows the maddening pace of his hips to cradle you in his arms. You’re like jelly, practically flop back into the cushion when he slips an arm beneath you. “You’re so good for me,” Jungkook praises, lavishing your throat in tiny pecks as his orgasm circles around. “My pretty girl.”

“Love you,” you sigh, and your body feels numb, his intrusion but a small touch now that he’s tired you out once more, your walls tender and raw. Jungkook presses a smile against your throat and, moments later, releases inside of you.

Even minutes after the deed, the feeling refuses to return to your legs. He didn’t go that hard— well, you’re not entirely sure. The memories always become blurry toward the end of your escapades. Everything rushes back in waves, and for some reason, your first thought is, “where’s Sailor Moon?”

Your post-rump conversations have never been the most coherent, usually filled with pretty weird thoughts and ideas. Still, more grand things have happened tonight for you to be worried about a magical anime girl. Jungkook draws himself out of your core with a huff of laughter. “On the TV,” he answers, unfazed by the oddity of your question.

That’s how you know he’s a keeper.

It takes a while, but eventually Jungkook responds. “Avocado toast,” he says, though his answer is dripping with uncertainty. He’s naked as the day he was born, snuggled up beside you in bed. He’s propped up on one arm, looking down at you over the ample swell of his manly bosom. It takes everything in you to keep your hands off his chest.

“Correct,” you respond, “and what movie did we watch?”

Without missing a beat, “Transformers, the first one.”

You nod, glancing at the ceiling as you rack your brain for any other trivia questions to ask your fiancé. “The title of the playlist you made?”

A flush paints his cheeks. “Date Night playlist,” he answers through a pout, reprimanding you for bringing up such a memory with a flick to your forehead. You wince. “I was young and silly,” he defends.

You beam, cuddling into his side until he’s forced to lay back down. “Yeah, yeah,” you tease. “We’re only gonna get older from here,” you lament. You’d say it’s difficult to picture him with a gray head of hair, but his current silvery locks don’t leave much room for your imagination.

Jungkook pulls you close. A beat of silence passes, and then, “so who are we telling first?”

Definitely Namjoon.

#networkbangtan #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook smut #jungkook #Jungkook fic #jeon jungkook fic #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x reader smut #bts fic #bts smut #mine

2K notes · View notes

ace-of-clubs-and-diamonds · 3 years ago

Text

Damn I am on fuckin FIRE this weekend! A sexy oneshot and the next chapter of Waking Nightmares? You guys are getting spoiled! Luckily for all of you, I LOVE to spoil you guys, and I am getting sooooo excited for these next chapters. I mean, I was already excited for this story in general, but man we are getting to the real good shit. I’m dying to write it, and I’m dying for you all to see it!

So without further ado, let’s go! I hope everyone enjoys!

Waking Nightmares masterlist here.

Waking Nightmares: Chapter 4

Rating: Mature, SFW

Word count: 3,189

Content warnings: Spooky creepy stuff, paranoia, panic, sleep paralysis

POV: Roxanne Love

Aaron Felder – 47 years of age, publishing agent, husband to a lovely wife, and father to a high school aged daughter – had been found late Sunday night in an alleyway with his throat slashed open. It had been plastered all over the news. Everyone knew about it. Jasper, Ohio had its crimes of course, every place did. But murder wasn’t very common here. News of a murder was like finding a four leaf clover or seeing a double rainbow... though markedly less lucky.

Murder got noticed. Murder was remembered by the residents of the quiet little town and talked about nonstop. Because that just didn’t happen here. Nothing ever happened here.

The office had been unusually hushed Monday morning. The atmosphere had been a little bit off, the air just a little too oppressive. I'd paused and frowned as the uncertainty prickled against my skin. But I'd assumed it was my own mind. I was already on edge from the past couple nights.

It hadn’t been until a passing comment from a patient that I realized that no, it wasn't just me. It was everyone else, too.

“Your heartrate is a bit higher than usual,” I’d noted as I’d taken a patient’s pulse. “Nothing concerning, though.” I’d pulled away and checked his notes in the computer. “You have a history of anxiety… anything on your mind?”

He’d shrugged and tried to laugh it off. I hadn't pushed him. But after a full minute of hesitant silence, he admitted, “I guess the news this morning made me a bit... you know. On edge.”

I’d frowned at him. “News?”

“You haven’t heard?” He stared at me in utter shock, as if it was completely unbelievable that I hadn’t been monitoring world events from the moment I’d woken up. But I’d been a little busy trying to convince myself that somebody wasn’t trying to fucking kill me in my sleep. When I’d asked him, he’d said, “Some guy was found dead last night. Somebody killed him!”

That had given me pause. My fingers had frozen over the old-fashioned, thick grey keyboard of the work computer.

After the past couple nights, the news of a murder had been… unsettling. It was yet another thing to fuel the near-constant urge to glance over my shoulder every time I wasn't up against a wall. To make sure there wasn’t someone there. Just in case.

But it hadn’t been until my lunch break that I’d realized how well and truly fucked the whole thing was. I’d stared at my phone screen in silence, heart speeding up as I read the article published that morning.

He’d died.

He’d been deliberately killed.

And that’s why he hadn’t shown up on Saturday. Because someone had killed him.

I’d lost my appetite.

The rest of the day had crawled by. Once I'd gotten home, I’d barely been able to get more than a sentence down on the page. So I’d killed time watching TV trash and scrolling though news articles, eyes flicking to the clock every five minutes. Dread had curled metal fingers around my chest.

Until finally it was time for bed.

Again, it had taken a while for my mind to calm enough for me to fall asleep. Again, I’d woken up in a dream, on my back and unable to move, that figure in that same corner. And again, I’d woken up flailing and soaked in sweat.

Same thing Tuesday.

By Wednesday, exhaustion had etched itself into my bones. It was a little harder to stay on my feet at work – a little harder to keep track of all the different patients’ charts. A little harder to keep myself focused on the real world rather than letting my mind wander to fiction and dreams. Time sludged by. It was a relief to get back home afterwards.

I trudged up the stairs and traded uncomfortable blue scrubs for loungewear before collapsing at my writing desk. I let my head drop and gently thump against the worn wooden surface. It smelled of wood shavings and ink, comforting in its familiarity.

Fuck, I was tired. All I wanted to do was crumple and drift off into oblivion.

Unfortunately, my personal sleeping companion would've had it otherwise.

I sighed and shoved myself upright. The temptation to make yet another cup of coffee was only overridden by sheer laziness. Instead, I flipped open my laptop and opened the document I’d been working on. The document where I was brainstorming and planning out the story I’d been working on since Sunday. Night Terrors, I’d titled it. I wasn’t sure if I’d keep that name, but it worked for now.

Trying to write while exhausted was rarely a good idea. But I hadn’t written anything since Sunday.

And. I wanted to.

I was just really fucking tired.

I diligently poked away at the keyboard, adjusting notes and adding little bits of dialogue to potential scenes. It wasn’t much, far less than I would’ve liked … but it was better than nothing, I supposed.

Time trickled by. Faint ticking echoed from the analogue clock in the kitchen behind me. It was otherwise silent.

I’m so tired.

Sleep whispered its seductive lullaby. Exhaustion weighed down on my shoulders, unrelenting. It was hard to keep my eyes open. I propped my cheek up on a fist as I stared at the computer screen and fought to keep my vision from glazing over. It was a losing battle. My eyelids started to droop, and the world around me started to blur and fade.

A couple minutes wouldn’t hurt…

A crash made me jerk back awake. Adrenaline shot through my veins, beating back any trace of exhaustion and replacing it with buzzing alertness and a pounding heart. I twisted around in my seat, eyes wide and darting around, looking for anything out of place.

What the FUCK was that?!?

It had come from the kitchen. The dim lamplight from my desk didn’t reach far enough. All I could see was the gaping maw of the doorway and vague, dark shapes.

There was nothing obviously there.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck, a prickling, creeping sensation.

There was a logical, practical, ordinary explanation for this. Of course there was. But after everything that had happened… it was hard not to jump to conclusions.

“Houdini?” I called out. I didn’t like how weak my voice sounded.

No response.

“Houdini?” My voice was steadier this time. And this time, I got an answering meow.

To my right.

I twisted back around in my chair, unwinding to look to my left. Houdini sat curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace, head up, blue eyes wide and alert, pupils narrowed to slits and ears and tail flicking.

It hadn’t been Houdini.

Unease settled low and heavy in my gut.

Don’t panic.

I slowly stood up, eyes glued to the darkened kitchen. Instinct warned me away. Instinct would’ve had me scurrying up to my bedroom to hide under the sheets like a frightened child. But I shoved the feeling down, deep down, suffocating it until it was silent. But it was still there. I ignored it.

Cautiously, I crossed the living room. Padded my way towards the kitchen and paused right before its entrance. I leaned forward a little, flicking a precursory glance around. Not that I could see anything anyway. It was dead silent, and I wondered if Houdini could hear my heartbeat from the living room with his tiny, sharp little ears.

I drew in a breath before reaching out, sliding my arm along the wall until I felt the light switch.

A beat passed.

And then I flicked the light on, snapping my arm back against my body as if expecting something to lunge out of the darkness to tear me limb from limb.

The kitchen was… empty.

And completely as I’d left it this morning.

Except for the clock. It had fallen from its place on the wall and slammed face-down onto the counter. Jagged shards of glass surrounded its corpse like a halo.

Relief flooded my veins. Fuck, it must’ve slipped off its hook. Normally I would’ve been pissed at the mess, but at this point I wasn’t complaining.

The clock had fallen. It was a logical, practical, and ordinary explanation.

Thank God.

I swept into the kitchen, being sure to avoid the shards that had fallen onto the white tile floor. It was kind of disappointing – I’d liked that clock. Nothing fancy, but it had a thick pastel blue frame and pretty stenciled numbers. It felt a little retro, like something you'd see in a 50s diner. It was cute. It didn’t match anything else in the house, but I liked it, and I was a bit sad to see it go. I’d gotten it from a sweet little thrift store downtown. Maybe I'd be able to find something similar –

Click.

I froze.

It wasn’t the right pitch, too heavy and slow and deep – but it was an unmistakably metallic sound.

Something cold skittered up my spine again.

I didn’t want to, but I stepped out from the kitchen and into the hallway, staring down towards the front door. Silver light filtered through the little window in the door and cast strange, misshapen patterns on the floor.

I squashed down the ridiculous urge to call out, Hello? That’s always what happened before a bitch died in a horror movie. Or before they were attacked by some monster or a guy with a knife. It was easy to dismiss as a dumb move in a film. But a lot harder to reconcile when it was night and you were at home alone and sleep-deprived. And feeling as though you weren't alone.

I flicked on the hallway light. The lights hummed and flooded the foyer. And once again, everything was in place, as it should be, exactly how I’d left it.

Except.

The front door was unlocked.

I’d locked the door when I’d gotten back. I always locked the door when I got back. There’s no way I’d forgotten to. It was a rule that had been drilled into my head since childhood. Memories of Mum in the kitchen sternly telling me to always lock the doors were clear in my mind. Don’t leave the doors or windows unlocked, especially if you’re alone. That’s how bad people get to you. That’s how people steal your things and hurt you. Always lock everything.

The idea of a house-invasion had always terrified her. Maybe it came from growing up in a poorer neighborhood in India, where house thefts were common. My father, who’d lived his entire life in middle-class white America, confident in his own safety, would’ve happily left everything unlocked if not for her. She’d instilled her fear into me as a child, and I still carried it now. It's why I locked everything, even if I’d only be gone for a couple seconds. It's why I checked the locks around the house every so often to make sure they were still latched shut.

It's why my heart was currently trying to hammer its way out of my body.

My hands shook a little as I marched down the hall and flicked the lock back closed. I bounced up onto my tiptoes and peered through the little door window, glimpsing the darkened, blurred neighborhood outside.

Nothing unusual or out of place.

It was fine.

I made to head back to the living room.

Click.

Fear shot up my spine. I whirled back around, hair whipping in my eyes.

The door was unlocked again.

What the fuck.

A pit seemed to open in my stomach. My heart was racing by now, and I struggled to get a proper breath down.

I grabbed the handle and yanked the door open. Cool night air hit me as I stepped out under the awning and pulled the door closed behind me. I kept a tight grip on the handle as I shot a glance left, then right, scanning the sidewalk and streets for any sign of life. But aside from the sound of chittering crickets and a barking dog from across the street, there was nothing. A motor rumbled in the distance. The sky was almost completely dark, save for a bloody red that spilled over the edge of the horizon.

It had to be a prank.

I stepped back inside and slammed the door, turning the lock back in place with a resounding click.

I didn’t even make it one step before it unlocked again.

Anger and fear mixed into a boiling cocktail as I turned around once again and flicked the lock closed. Immediately and before my very fucking eyes, it unlocked as if done by an unseen hand.

My ribcage felt too tight as I stared at the lock and slowly stepped backwards.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.

Not a prank. It couldn’t be a prank. Was there something wrong with the lock? My mind whirled as I scrambled for a sensible answer.

I couldn’t find one.

I grabbed a chair from the tiny dining room and dragged it to the foyer, shoving it under the door handle to keep it from moving. There’s no way someone would be able to get in with the chair blocking the handle. Not without me hearing it, at least, and giving me time. Once the door was secure, I headed back into the kitchen. It was stupid as hell, a compulsion, but every sense was on high alert, adrenaline making my movements a little too sharp. My mind wouldn’t settle.

I needed to make sure everything was locked. The back door, the windows, everything. I needed to make sure everything was locked and safe and that there was no one inside the house and fucking with me.

So I did what every perfectly normal, perfectly sensible person would do.

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen. One of the smallest, sharpest ones. One of the most effective ones.

A precaution.

I checked around the house. Checked the back door and every single window and made sure each was tightly locked and in place. I even propped a chair against the back door for extra measure. Then I checked every single room in the house, including behind the shower curtain and inside the closets. To anyone else, it would've looked extreme. And admittedly, it was. But I was already losing sleep because of my own mind. I didn’t need any-fucking-thing else to pile onto it.

Once I was sure everything else was locked and blocked, I returned to the front door. And once more, I slammed the lock into place.

I stood there, legs spread in a fighting stance, body rigid, knife clutched in hand as I stared at the lock.

“Make a move, bitch,” I muttered to empty air. “Make. A fucking. Move.”

The lock stayed locked.

Minutes flitted by.

Eventually, I turned away. Walked down the hall, listening for the telltale click of the bolt turning. Twisted back around once I was at the entrance to the living room.

Still locked.

I sat back down at my writing desk, but no more actual writing happened. I only half-mindedly read over my own notes, still too on edge and alert to focus. I listened for anything – any strange sounds, the slightest noise, anything. Houdini had watched me go around the house, but he’d settled back down now, grey-tufted ears twitching every now and then.

The knife stayed by my side.

I’d fallen asleep facing the corner, this time. The first time I’d been on my back and unaware. The second time I’d been facing away. The other two times, I’d also ended up on my back. But this time, I’d curled up on my left side and shoved a pillow behind my back so I wouldn’t roll over. Then I positioned my head so that all I needed to do was open my eyes and I’d get a perfect view of the corner.

I guessed I was a little fed up, that night. The remnants of adrenaline still pumped through my veins from the events earlier. It was past 1:00 a.m. when I finally fell asleep.

Unlike the last few times where I slowly, groggily came to and seemed to be fighting a heavy fog, I snapped awake almost immediately this time. The dream was sharper, clearer, as if some of the fog had lifted from the very start. I still couldn’t move. But I was more keenly aware this time.

Though I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

Because things were different.

The dream had changed.

I had not been prepared for that, and panic scrabbled at my chest as my gaze snapped around the bedroom.

The walls were bubbling.

They were boiling. As if they were made of some impossible, thick wax-like substance and melting from the inside, bubbles slowly bulging to the surface as the rest dripped down and pooled onto the floor with a sizzle. Colors shifted from inside the walls – from the normal grey-blue, made almost black in the darkness, to a bloody cherry red and a decaying emerald green. It was too warm. Sweat clung to my body, as if whatever was boiling the walls was going to boil me too.

And.

There was him.

Because that was most definitely a person standing there in the corner. I could make out a brimmed hat, a long coat that swept past his knees, and a right hand with fingers that were too long and clicked together when they moved. The rest of him was still little more than a silhouette.

If I could move, I would’ve surged to my feet, grabbed the knife I’d brought to my bedside table, and lunged at him without hesitation. But I couldn’t move, I was still helpless and at his mercy, and I couldn’t have stopped him anymore than I could stop the sun from burning. All I could do was tremble and shudder.

It took me far too long to realize something else. And when I did, fear surged up my throat and got stuck there.

Oh my God. No. This wasn’t real. I had to beat that thought into my mind, repeat and repeat and repeat it because this certainly felt real, and a scream was threatening to spill out.

The figure was closer.

He’d moved.

He’d gone from being tucked tightly into the corner to being just beyond the edge of the dresser, as if he’d taken a single step closer.

As if he was slowly approaching my bed.

No. No. Please no, I wanted to beg. Once again, I strained my body, strained my muscles as I desperately fought against nothing and tried to move. Tears welled in my eyes.

Please.

The figure lifted that right hand, and moonlight glinted off those fingers – and that’s when I realized they weren’t just fingers. They were gleaming silver talons. A chuckle rang out, deep and echoing and cruel.

“Hey there, Roxy.”

This time, I actually did wake up screaming.

#ace writes #waking nightmares #freddy krueger #freddy krueger x oc #freddy krueger x roxanne love #new nightmare #wes craven's new nightmare #anoes #a nightmare on elm street

12 notes · View notes

tastytofusoup · 2 years ago

Text

I got a Ducky Shine 7 mechanical keyboard because my Corsair one was getting worn out and semi dying. And lemme tell you, this isn't gonna wear out any year soon that's for sure. My god it's nice and worth it, and lives up to the company's reputation.

The top is zinc alloy, it's so HEAVY I love it. The whole thing feels so solid and well built. The key caps are an extra durable type of plastic ( PBT Double-shot - basically 2 plastics molded together), and have a slightly rough texture to them, which also feels really nice.

I got it with MX Brown switches, which feel great. I had Reds previously, and I went for Brown because I was looking for something with a slight bit more of a feel to when the switch activates, without going to the full loud clicky Blues. And they're exactly what I was looking for. They're actually quieter than the Reds. Especially since I can feel the activation point, so I'm typing lighter, rather than pressing the keys all the way down. Because I know they've activated before then.

It's RGB and you can actually program it from the keyboard without software at all if you want, but Ducky do have their own software for it, which is much simpler and nicer than the Corsair one. It also both installed AND updated the keyboard's firmware in less time than most programs will install. It just works™, and doesn't need to be constantly running in the background to work, the settings are just stored in the keyboard itself.

It also connects with just a USB-C cable, so it can be quickly disconnected, which is GREAT for quick regular dusting. Also means you can replace the cable with whatever USB-C you like. Off the bat I've been using a braided one I had already.

It's got stands underneath to lift the back, as many keyboards have, but this one has a smaller stand within a larger one, so you have 2 height choices. The stands of course feel solid, like everything else, and have a satisfying strong spring.

It was nearly £200 and my dude, this shit's worth it. Mechanicals from things like Corsair and Razer are fairly pricey already, but the quality doesn't even compare. If you can, investing that what, £50/60 or whatever more I think is probably even an economic choice in the long run. This thing feels like some pristine loot you’d find in an otherwise destroyed Fallout building.

3 notes · View notes

falcqns · 4 years ago

Note

Hmmm, I thought about this. That Henry and I are playing some PC game, and we were both yelling at each other, that his mom when she visited us thought that we're having sex. Something like "Push harder etc" 😂

thankful

pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

A/N: I just started playing it and I haven't made it past this freaking quest because I cannot for the life of me find the fucking Buckthorn and I can just imagine Henry about to lose his absolute shit with me lmao. Any hints on hOW to find the Fucking BUCKTHORN would be greatly appreciated y’all. Also Im playing it on the switch so I don't know the controls for PC, so ignore the fact that I don't mention the controls LOL

Warnings: Witcher 3 Wild Hunt spoilers, swearing, implied smut, Marianne telling her son off

The two of you knew that you only had about a hour while Henry’s mom, Marianne, stepped out to go get some groceries.

Naturally, as a fairly new girlfriend to Henry, he only wanted to do one thing with you.

Show you how to play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

The two of you were in his office, you on his lap, while he showed you the controls of the game. You got yourself acquainted well with the PC mechanics, and started Geralt’s journey.

Geralt and Vesemir had made it to the tavern to ask about Yennefer, and was about to venture out to find some Buckthorn, when you were attacked by some Nilfaardians.

Immediately, Henry wanted to take over the controls and show you how to beat them in expert time, but he knew you'd be mad, so he just encouraged you to continue.

“No! Baby you need to use Axii, not Igni!” He groaned, before placing his hands over yours to take over the controls. “You need to influence his mind to get him to tell you the information!”

“HENRY, STOOOOPP,” You whined, when he took over. “I can do it, just let me try!” You huffed, and crossed your arms across your chest.

Henry beat the Nilfgaardians before glancing down at you. “I’m sorry, baby, but I didn't want you to die,”

You stood up in a huff. “You didn't even let me try!” You cried out, tears streaming down your face.

Henry became concerned, and pulled you to straddled his lap.

He brushed the hair away from your eyes, before gazing into them.

“I’m sorry, baby. I won't do it again.” He said, his fingers trailing up and down your back.

“Yes, you will,” You murmured, your cries turning into sobs. Your head fell forward and buried itself into his neck.

Henry chuckled. “Baby, C’mon. Stop. It’s just a game.”

Your head snapped up. “That’s not the fucking point.” You growled. You slid off his lap and headed towards the door with full intentions of storming away and locking yourself in the bathroom to calm down.

Henry stood, and grabbed your wrist, his hand coming to cup your chin and forcing you to look him in the eyes.

“Watch your language, little one.” He grunted, in a menacing tone.

You growled again, before pulling out of his grasp.

“Then stop taking over the fucking game. Let me do it! I’m sure you died there when you first played it, I have to learn some how.” You stomped over to Henry’s gaming chair and plopped down into it, throwing Henry one last glare before turning back to the PC.

He let out a rather dramatic sigh, but walked over to you.

“Okay, love, I’m sorry. Stand up, and I won't take over the game again.” You shook your head, your fingers already moving over the keyboard.

“No.”

“What was that?” Henry said, as a warning.

You turned to look at him. “I said no. You can sit down next to me. I don't trust you,” You muttered before turning back to the screen. You sighed in annoyance.

“Look at that Henry, you made me run Geralt and Roach into a fucking bush because you can't have someone else take control for once.” Henry sighed in defeat, and took a seat next to you, resigning to just encourage you. “You're going to get it tonight,”

You shot him one last glare. “Say another word and you're sleeping on the Fucking couch, Cavill.”

You continued to play, and Henry encouraged you.

You were fighting some wolves when he started to shout.

“Harder, baby harder!” He shouted, groaning when Geralt's stamina dropped slightly.

“I’M GOING AS HARD AS I CAN HENRY GOD! MY FINGERS ONLY MOVE SO FAST!”

And that was the first thing Marianne heard when she walked back into the house.

“Uh, Henry? Y/N?” Henry immediately stood up, sensing that you needed him to walk away.

He walked out to greet his mom.

“Hi mom.” He said, giving her a hug.

Marianne looked him up and down which caused Henry to scrunch up his eyebrows.

“What?” He asked.

Marianne gave him a knowing look.

“Well, when I walked into your house, I heard Y/N scream at you.” She began, as she watched Henry unload the groceries from the bag. “Something about going as hard as she can?”

Henry busted out laughing, realizing what his poor mother was thinking.

“Oh, no, it’s not what you think mom. We were playing The Witcher together and she wasn't hitting a target hard enough and I was encouraging her which caused her to lose her shit on me,” He said.

His mom giggled. “You put have done something previously to tick her off, because she’s not the type of person to just explode on you like that.” Henry sighed in defeat. “Okay, she may have been close to dying, and I may have taken over controls, so she may have flew into a rage and told me off.”

He looked over at his mother, who had her hands on her hips.

“Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill. You couldn't let her take control for more than two seconds?” His mother said, sternly.

He looked at her. “Sorry, mom.”

She scoffed, before turning to put away some more groceries.

“You better be, because I didn't help you pick out that engagement ring for her to dump you over a game,”

Henry laughed, forever thankful that his mom wouldn't hesitate to put him right.

#henry cavill #henry cavill smut #henry!holmes #thewitcher #geralt of rivia #marianne cavill #fluff #suggestive

373 notes · View notes

marimo-o · 3 years ago

Text

ok so im making a long ass post about Abzu (the game) within the context of mesopotamian mythology because I'm insane. It's gonna be a doozy and likely incomprehensible so <3 below the cut it goes! There's gonna be TONS of spoilers for the game, and, like, I guess for the mesopotamian creation epic, so. Play Abzu if you haven't and if you wanna read the Enuma Elish that's also cool. Good for u

(a note from afterwards: it's long. like, REALLY fucking long, holy shit. if you actually want to read the whole thing, be. prepared or something idk take breaks! the last two paragraphs (i know they're walls of text pls bear with me) contain most of the important information. like, the final hurrah of my brain after working on this for multiple hours! So if u wanna save time and avoid some of the redundancy, just skip to those last two <3)

So "Abzu" referred to two things; the fresh water people got from underground aquifers (also as the void-sea which was underneath the Sumerian underworld, Kur), and the deity; he only appeared in the creation story, Enuma Elish, because a big part of that whole thing was that oh no! He dies! And that's also a thing I'm gonna touch on (sorry about the lack of accent marks in advance, it's not available on my current keyboard^ ^;)

I'm gonna start off with a brief tale of what happened with Abzu the deity, and then move onto how both the deity and the concept relate to the game!

So like I mentioned, Abzu the deity only really appears in the creation myth. The story goes that the Primordial Soup divided into two beings, with Abzu representing the freshwater and Tiamat being the saltwater. They were married, and together birthed some of the first formative gods! Some of these gods, jealous of Abzu's power convinced Tiamat to kill him (or, I thought it was started by Tiamat growing resentful of the younger gods, one of those). Either way, Abzu was killed, and Tiamat ended up lashing out, creating the first "dragons", or perhaps becoming one herself; with "poison instead of blood". She is killed by Marduk, the god of storms and the child of Enki (one of the first gods created by Abzu and Tiamat), and from her body the heavens and the earth are formed. Imagine getting killed by ur grandson lol cringe /j

Now! The waters itself! This also brings Enki into the equation, who kinda took over as god of the waters in place of his dead father. He's also the god of creation, intelligence, crafts, mischief, and more! Very important guy.

Abzu refers to both the groundwater reservoirs that people depended on for both accessible clean water and for some agricultural work, and also to the void-sea beneath the underworld, where it is said that Enki rests. He had a temple at Eridu, a now-ruined city, and I remember hearing somewhere that he lived in a temple in an underground aquifer? But I can't find wherever I read that anymore so don't take my word for it. Anyway, the basics of Enki as a deity is: child of Tiamat and Abzu, widely worshipped in his time, god of the waters, generally a cool and important dude.

And now. Finally. We move onto the game. My head hurts.

So, for a quick (post-writing: lol it's not quick) overview of the game; you play as a funny little diver, who woke up in the middle of the ocean and, as the player, are given no clues as to who or what you are. You explore through the ocean levels peacefully at first, and with the guidance of a scarred shark (painted as a bit of an antagonist at first with the audio cues) you make your way to wells at the bottom-center of each level that revitalize the space around them; as they progress, many levels start out as barren, empty landscapes that give you a foreboding, nervous feeling going in, before using an energy from yourself to rekindle the life. Huge coral growths, seaweed, and a myriad of ocean animals spring to life. The player character can also ride on the sides of the bigger ones! The game also puts a big stress on unity between yourself and the environment; there's not a whole lot you can physically interact with, but you can play with the animals there and, like I said before, ride on some of the larger animals. There are also "meditation spots", statues where you can sit and explore the wildlife from more of their point of view, able to follow them seamlessly and see what the different kinds of fish and such are called. It's a calming experience, and really the most interaction you get with some of the more timid animals, letting you still see them up close even if you can't get there as the player character.

The story of the game is told via writings on the walls, which you can light up and access by solving small puzzles regarding connecting reservoirs of glowing waters, similar to that of the almost cosmic area you go to between levels; one thing I read described it as a kind of "rebirth area", which I can definitely see hehe!

At the end of the game, you've held the shark in its dying moments, you've discovered a strange factory that builds the weird triangular prisms that deliver anything that touches them a shock, the little flashlight dudes that you've found over the levels, and little divers that uncannily resemble yourself, and you've seen yourself disassembled to your funny little mechanical skeleton, weak and slow as you try to walk on land, before you are rebirthed from the void-cosmic-water area once again, fully yourself. There's a wonderful ending sequence where you swim through all these rivers, bringing life with you as you go, with the shark once again by your side. The whole game, you saw no land when you poked your head above water, just miles and miles of water, but you've travelled far enough to reach a reservoir. You cut the chains to a central triangular prism, and it grows over with moss. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, really, it feels like such a... grand gesture as you play through it. It feels personal.

Okay. Theory time. Finally, we're getting into the meat of it. Fucking hell.

So, imagine that you are this being. You're wandering an oceanic wonderland, observing and caring for what you need to, doing as any good little diver should. After a bit of poking around, you discover the start of the engravings on the walls; they tell the story of the people that were here before you, who built these temples and halls and used, or at least stored, the strange blue glowing "water" that you connect and move. It's a water of life, of sorts, one that they truly valued. You come to an impasse between areas, and this massive, scarred-up shark cuts in front of you. You're gonna stay hidden, that thing is terrifying! You try not to move. It doesn't spot you, or at least doesn't move to attack you. However, once it's safely out of view, you do follow it, and it leads you to a dark, desolate, empty chamber. This is wrong, you think to yourself. This isn't how it should be. There's a well, towards the bottom, and you approach it, taking... a fragment of light, from your chest, and imbuing that spark of life into the well. And, lo and behold, that intuition proved helpful, because the world around you springs back to life. Congratulations! You did it! And you continue to, as you work past puzzles and challenges and the appearance of these strange triangular mechanisms, that shock you when you get too close. These people worshipped a shark, as well, likely the same as the one you saw; the guide, now old and scarred, that brings you to where that spark is needed. Even later in the game, you see depictions of the triangular mechanisms, at first heralded as a positive, before these things are found to be the reason for this society's collapse. As if that wasn't perplexing enough, you see a depiction of a being that appears suspiciously similar to yourself, once again treated with reverence from the past civilization. In their hand is a ball of light, similar to the one shown when you revitalize the oceanic chambers. Well, that's certainly odd, you think to yourself. Perhaps this was a being that postponed the death of the civilization, or first allowed for those small chambers of life to exist in captivity instead of the open, natural landscapes you explored at the start. Regardless, it's now a relic of something long gone; but it still gives you something to think about. Later on, that strange coincidence of your similarities to that person are explained; you find a manufacturing plant, full of the vicious triangular mechanisms in each tight hallway, and right at the center of it all... multiple iterations of yourself, running down an assembly line, a spark not unlike what you saw before imbued into each of them. My, look at that; you've been responsible for part of this destruction all along, haven't you? Borne from that same ill that has been forcibly removing that spark from each of the places you've gone to. A bit inconsiderate of you, no? And yet... look at all the good you've done. You've rebirthed, revitalized, purified these ocean fragments, is that not enough? You are the keeper of these waters, regardless of the evil you had come from, despite the terrifying empty things may have reverted to. You, who trusted and followed the shark that seemed so scary at first. You, who followed it as it tried to attack a source of the evil, of the thing that was draining the oceans of their life. You, who held and comforted that shark as it lay dying, despite any fear you may have had. You, who attempted to traverse a minefield of those triangular machines, shocked over and over again and at the final moment, unable to make it to the finish line. You, who was rebirthed in full regardless by the oceans you'd cared for, by the void-sea you always returned to, to rest. You, who traversed a now-ruined citadel, temple, all of which had been flooded and had been dedicated to you. You, who brought life with you.

I hope you see what I'm getting at here. You're serving as a figure not unlike Enki, god and guardian of the waters. In the wake of Abzu, the avatar of the fresh waters, now confined to irrigation canals so as not to kill the younger gods, Tiamat lashes out. Her husband is dead, as far as she is concerned, and she goes to those younger gods to seek her revenge. The dragon, that which sucked the life from the seas and poisoned the waters. That which Marduk killed, to carve new life from. I would say that the shark is Marduk, even; given how the shark is the only one who is openly on the offense to those mechanisms, and who comes in at the endgame to finish them off, bringing new life with it. Even in how it all shapes up with the civilization before, in connection to the constructs; Tiamat was the mother of all in existence at that time. She was surely loved; but she turned hostile and violent. She could no longer be safely loved. And Abzu, both the glowing water we use to open doors and the light that we hold and the deep void-sea we enter between levels and father to all in existence, he was confined to small canals and reservoirs and put in a deep sleep so that he would not kill his own children. And by you, no less. Enki put him there. That is why you can use that water from the start; you lived in the Abzu, you came from it, and each time, that is where you return. That temple, now submerged and decrepit, is Eridu; the place where Enki was most worshipped. The other diver clones are the other gods, or perhaps the "dragons", now, that Tiamat had mothered. The smaller prisms definitely count in that "dragon" category; purely harmful beings that seek to destroy life. And in the end, indeed, you restore life; you and your son, upon killing Tiamat, return life to the world from her body. Perhaps you could not save those who once worshipped you, perhaps those structures will forever be in ruin. But there is no more danger, now; there is space to build and replenish. There is space to grow.

Fuck ok that was long as hell. Hi if u made it this far i love u. god fucking damn im never writing anything again after this. it took about as long as a full playthrough of the game, coincidentally!!

#my writing #abzû #abzu #giant squid studios #ancient history #the moss mumbles #im not joking this is horrible. like it's all just word vomit about sumerian legend -> the game -> the game again (but in second person)#and THEN we get to The Point. god christ

51 notes · View notes

calif0rnia-lovers · 4 years ago

Text

Castle Alphabet: Death Wish

My love can't heal the scars you carved on your own heart

Pairing: Frank Castle x Black!OC

A/N: It’s been a long time since I’ve written something that wasn’t actually requested. Here’s some angsty Castle content for you. For those who have seen the show, this is set when David found Frank dying in the woods 😖

Summary: As Frank lay dying he made a phone call. He knew it was selfish, went against a promise, but he did it anyway. If there was a voice he needed to hear in his last seconds it was hers.

Words: 1K

“What the hell were you two doing?”

Morgan’s question doesn’t register — at least not the first time it’s asked. It’s not David’s fault — not really. It’s Frank’s fault. All of this is Frank’s fault. At least that’s what Frank’s going to say once he wake’s up — if Frank wakes up.

The temporary stall in David’s mind comes from the blood. Frank’s blood. He’s seen Frank bleed before. Blood and The Punisher are synonymous. But the man lying before him isn’t The Punisher. It’s Frank Castle — his friend.

And right now — David is putting the life of his friend in the hands of a woman he’s never properly met. A woman who is moving as though this isn’t the first time she’s seen Frank in this state. In the time David’s frozen, she’s managed to stain her hands and pajamas in Frank’s blood.

David has never been a religious man, but he believes it was an act of God that Morgan answered her phone tonight.

She was asleep, drained from a long shift at the hospital. The phone had rung nearly six times, each passing ring prompting Frank to send a prayer to the Big Man upstairs.

Isn’t it funny? How everyone prays in the end?

There were many times Frank hoped he could die — have all of his sufferings snuffed out by a bullet. But there seems to be someone — or something — that keeps him alive every time he comes face to face with his death wish. No matter if he’s left battered, bruised, and hanging on by a hair’s breadth, Frank Castle can’t seem to fucking die.

This time had felt different — his blood-soaked clothes and shallow breaths — left Frank believing he might die. That’s why he called Morgan.

When shit had hit the fan, Frank swore he’d never call her again — not when he was like this. The promise was simple. Frank would call Morgan when he was ready to be with her outside of her first aid kits and his blood. Frank had kept good on his promise until he was laying there on the floor of the woods — cold, alone, and bleeding out — eyes on the starlit sky. He hadn’t looked up at the sky and regarded the stars in a long time. It’s hard to see them from the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. As he lay there, he had one thought on his mind — she loves the stars.

She’d answered on the last ring. The loss of blood left his words slurred and nonsensical, but Frank was still clutching the phone when David finally reached him.

The steadiness of her needle begins to waiver as Morgan’s brain finally begins to process what she’s doing. Suturing is a part of her everyday job description. She’s lost count of the number of times she’s done it in her time at Metro-General Hospital. Let alone the times she’s stitched up Frank — but each time he’s been awake. His soft smile and eyes, reassuring her the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked.

Only this time, he’s not watching her. His fingers aren’t going to brush against her cheek once he’s patched up. Frank's going to be out for two whole days.

“How many times have you done this?” David’s question steadies Morgan’s hand once she realizes she has stopped working.

“Too many times,” she replies. Her eyes briefly meet his before returning to her blood-soaked gloved hands. “What were you doing that left him like this? He can’t keep coming back looking this. He’s a fucking man — he cannot always come back from this.”

When he wakes, Frank is unable to move. His body bogged down by exhaustion and pain.

He lays still for a moment, slowly working up the courage to get up and assess the damage. He listens to the familiar clicking of David's keyboard for a while before glancing across the room.

The view of David's computer monitors is blocked. While he was asleep, the room has rearranged. David's bed is pushed to a different corner in the room. In its place is a chair that currently holds a sleeping Morgan.

It has been nearly a year since Frank last saw her — at least this close. The chaos of the last few weeks has hindered Frank from checking up on Morgan — from a distance of course. In that time, she has cut her hair. Frank's trying to take note of any other changes when her eyes open.

For a second, neither of them speaks.

"There’s my girl," he smiles. The action itself isn't painful, but the throbbing in his head makes him wince.

Ignoring the pleas from his body to remain still, Frank moves to push back the blanket draped over him.

“Frank — Stop, I need you to stay still.”

Despite the request, Frank is pushing himself up — breath catching in his chest — before Morgan can detangle her limbs from the blanket she is curled under.

Frank attempts to wave her panicked eyes away as he grunts. “Let me get a good look at you first—it's been a while.”

"Yet, you’re still a pain in my ass." Morgan’s eyes roll as she recognizes Frank has every intention of getting up from the bed.

"If not me, who will be?" Frank chuckles, wincing at the tightening of his ribcage.

Giving in to her initial request, Frank relaxes back against the mattress, his eyes closing as he attempts to catch his breath.

His grip is tight as she takes his hand in hers, his face resting against the warmth of her skin as it ghosts over his cheek.

Part of him expects her to say something — remind him of his promise.

"I won't drag you into this shit again."

He's ready to tell her that he's sorry.

Frank knows he's uttered the words countless times. The problem is that he always means it. Maybe that’s what makes it so hard every time he finds himself needing her again.

But for once, Morgan doesn't say anything.

She lets her lips brush against his cheeks, lingering against the bridge of his nose, before finding his. She can tell from the softness of his lips against hers that his body is ready to pull Frank back under.

"Go back to sleep, Frank." Her lips press against his forehead before she stands.

The panic that rushes through his body tries its best to overpower the sleep. His grip tightens around Morgan's fingers as his eyes drift shut.

“Don’t...go anywhere.”

Main Tags: @wiccanmetallicrose @themarkblues @mariaxliliana @gemini0410 @binooo98 @the-jer-bear @abbiesthings @trhett21 @trulysuccubus @leahnicole1219 @keithseabrook27 @starrynite7114 @awkwardtayler @toni9 @vannabanana1995 @queenbeered @kaystacks17 @thesandbeneathmytoes @star017 @richonne4life @cocotheclown @oscars-wifeyyy @rosieposie0624 @jennisdirtyimagines @ughdontbeboring @partypoison00 @myakai13 @appropriate-writers-name @demonquartz @ourlittlesecretsoveragain @everyhowlmarksthedead @linziland13 @mrsmarvelous1995 @sadeyesgf @beiroviski @oldstuffnewstuff @making-starsdance

#let me know what you think?#Aja Naomi King is my favorite face claim #frank castle imagine #Frank Castle x Black!OC #black!oc #castle alphabet #frank castle fic #frank castle #the punisher imagine

80 notes · View notes

grayson1996 · 3 years ago

Text

You Have to Let Me Go

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34210816

No. 1 All trussed up and still nowhere to go.

"You have to let go" | Barbed Wire |Bound

Unlike what most people assumed, the cave was not usually a quiet place.

How could it be, when each one of Bruce’s children would filter in and out throughout the day and night. To ask questions, to spar, to prepare for patrol. Each inhabitant of the manor came with their own soundtrack that when put together created a familiar and comforting symphony.

Damian was the sound of quiet purposeful footfalls, followed by the scurrying steps of a small animal trailing dutifully after him. He was small huffs of breath made out of annoyance or interest (or amusement if it was a good day). The metallic sound of a sword being drawn out of it’s sheath, followed by the dull thud of it striking one of the many wooden posts in the training area. When Damian first appeared at the Manor he had been like a ghost, gliding along and hiding in the corners of rooms and the sides of hallways. The League believed that their assassins should neither be seen nor heard. The sound was a relief to Bruce, an outward sign of his youngest growth.

Cassandra, like Damian, was taught to be silent. Deadly quiet. And to this day Bruce couldn’t hear her coming and was often spooked by her sudden appearance, much to her amusement. But she too had her own trills. The sound of the skin on her hands rubbing together as they signed to whoever was nearest to her. A breathy chuckle, usually in response to something done by Stephanie or Dick. The awful sound of knuckles cracking striking through the cave. Despite Alfred's reasoning that it would cause arthritis Cass wouldn’t stop and frankly Bruce thought the twitch that appeared above his surrogate Father’s eyes when it happened was hilarious.

Tim was the slurping of coffee, and the rumblings of an empty stomach. He was the quick typing of a keyboard, and the distracting tapping of his foot against the side of the computer console. People thought that Dick was the most fidgety of his children, but it was Tim. Though true that Dick enjoyed moving, his movement was always purposeful. While Tim’s seem to flick out of him sporadically and without much thought. Tim was also the most spatially unaware of his children, though whether that was from lack of grace or just sleep deprivation was anyone’s guess. It wasn’t uncommon to be alerted of his approach by the sound of something being knocked over or of a quiet curse being uttered after stubbing his toe on the stairs.

Jason perhaps contributed to the symphony of the cave the least, though thankfully his presence had become more and more common in the years since his resurrection. The sounds he made were purposeful and designed to annoy. The sound of chips being crunched by an open mouth during a mission report. A scoff at the end of an order or request. And on bad days the sound of arguing, of things being thrown and property being destroyed. But on softer days it was more comforting. The crinkle of a packet of cigarettes in his back pocket being smushed as he leaned against the computer console. Leather rubbing against leather as he crossed his arms. A quiet ‘thank you’ to Alfred after being handed a cup of tea. Or even a softly sarcastic ‘See ya old man’ if Bruce managed to get through an interaction without pissing him off.

All these sounds, these beautiful little noises that told Bruce his children were home, were safe. All of these sounds were gone from the cave. As he sat alone, staring blankly in front of him at the black computer screen. Half dressed in a torn and ripped Batsuit, his cowl and gloves having been discarded at some point. It was a space he hadn’t left for nearing three days much to his family's chagrin and thinly veiled concern. At the end of the first day he had locked them out, pushing back the familiar feeling of guilt as he did so.

He wasn’t sure if he was punishing himself. Perhaps he deserved this, deserved to be denied the comforting presence of his children, and deserved the oppressing quiet? Or perhaps he just didn’t have the energy to get up from this spot, to do anything. Perhaps it was easier to just sit here alone in the dark and quiet, because moving seemed impossible at the moment.

Usually when he sequestered himself away from any stimuli or love, he would be hounded by his thoughts. He would allow them to fester and devour his happiness, and drain him of anything resembling hope. He would allow himself to feel as awful as possible, because he deserved to tear himself up from the inside out.

Now however his thoughts were blank, deafened by the silence as though he were wearing noise cancelling headphones and his thoughts were the outside world. It was all blank, silent, there was nothing except him and his chair and the blank screen in front of him.

Then a warm hand gently placed itself on his shoulder.

“They’re worried about you.” Bruce let out a heavy sigh.

“I know.”

“I’m worried about you too.”

“I’m fine.” A snort of disbelief followed his statement.

“Clearly.”

“Why are you here?” The silence grew again and for a moment the hand began to retreat.

“I can go if you’d like?”

“NO!” Bruce spun around in his chair and reaching out he grabbed the tan hand and held it tightly in his grip. His son raised an eyebrow but did not retreat further.

“Alright I won’t.” Sitting down on the ground next to him, Dick’s gaze did not move from Bruce. “You look like shit.” Despite himself Bruce let out a huff of amusement, and felt warmth as Dick grinned back in triumph. “Seriously, take a shower B and get out of those clothes. You know Alfred’s upstairs dying to get you a proper meal.” Bruce shook his head, his grip tightening around Dick’s hand.”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can, all you have to do is stand up and put one foot in front of the other.” Bruce shook his head again.

“I can’t leave you.” Dick let out a heavy breath, and his eyes softened at the admission.

“You can’t stay down here forever B.” Bruce felt his chest tighten and his gaze quickly flickered over to the med bay where the curtain was drawn.

“I’m not ready.”

“Bruce-”

“ I’m not ready.” His tone was stern and for a moment Dick’s eyes narrowed, much like they had when the two were younger and always at each other’s throats. When it was just the two of them and neither knew how to be a Father or a Son. But just as quickly Dick’s face smoothed over, changing into something kinder then pity. Empathy perhaps.

“Okay, you’re not ready. But at least let the others down here Bruce. Isolating yourself like this, keeping them locked out and grieving on their own? It’s not kind B, you should all be together.” There was truth in his son’s words but still Bruce couldn’t let himself get up and see his other children. Because to see them, to let them in and to acknowledge what had happened meant that it was over. It meant that Dick was dead, and all that remained was his body now being kept cool in the medbay so that it didn’t begin to decompose.

And if Dick was dead then what the hell did that mean for Bruce, for the rest of them?

Dick was the one to calm Damian down after yet another fight with Bruce. Dick had been the one to soften the boy, raise him even. Damian didn’t deserve to lose the man. Didn’t deserve to lose the kindest person in his life.

Dick was the one to pull Tim away from the computer screen when he was going on his 3rd night of no sleep. To pry his phone out of his brother's hand, and tuck the boy into bed. He was the only one who could get away with treating Tim like a child. He was the only one who could get away with showing Tim love, without the boy recoiling in uncomfortableness.

Dick was the one who brought Jason back. Maybe not back to life but to the family for sure. Dragging the man in after him for a family dinner, pushing Jason to the table and breaking the tension with a quip or bad joke.

Dick was the one who brought Cass to her first dance lesson, and encouraged Stephanie to get her Masters, and got Alfred to take a break and join them for movie nights.

Dick was the one who had given Bruce hope again. Dick was love, Dick was family, Dick was goodness and righteousness and fury and passion. And all of sudden he was gone, with little fanfare or reason. He was just…. gone.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this chum.” Dick shrugged his shoulders, a small smile on his face.

“You just do it Bruce. You just get up and move forward. It sucks and I’m sorry but sitting here alone is only going to make it worse… and it’s only going to make them resent you.” Bruce knew he didn’t deal with death well. It was obvious in the black eye Dick sported after Jason’s death, in his anger after Damian’s. His whole life was built around it, and while he loved what he and his family had created as Batman, part of him hated it as well.

“I’m not a man who can change Dick…. It’s not something I ever learned how to do.” The confession was quiet and Bruce felt uncomfortable by the unusual genuineness of his words. Dick chuckled and shook his head incredulously.

“Of course it takes me dying to finally get you to open up.” The words were said without any scorn but it still caused something heavy to settle in Bruce’s gut. Dick however continued. “You have to grieve Bruce, you can’t push this away and ignore it. You have to let yourself grieve, and you have to let the others do it to. And it will suck and it will be hard and some days you won’t want to say my name because you just can’t . And some days you’ll forget for a moment that I’m not gone, and you’ll go to call me or turn to talk to me and then you’ll remember. And it will hit you like a brick.” Dick smiled sadly at him. “And it will be especially hard because you have lost a lot of people in your life but you haven’t let yourself experience that loss”

“ I can’t do this Dick . I’ll break.” Dick shook his head.

“So you let yourself break. And then you do what anyone who has lost someone does, you put yourself back together.” Dick sat up from the ground and moved to kneel in front of Bruce. Placing both his hands on his Father’s knees. “I can be there for them Bruce you have to be, which means you have to let go. You have to let go of me and let yourself fall, and trust trust that you’ll be able to get back up again.”

Maybe it was because this was all happening in his mind. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation and lack of food and water. Maybe it was because looking at Dick all he could see was the little boy who over 20 years ago first taught him how to actively live life again. Maybe it was the knowledge that the same little boy was now lying several feet away, dead. Whatever it was Bruce knew that he needed to do things differently.

Jason’s death had felt like a punishment. Dick’s felt like a lesson.

“I’ll try Dick… I can’t promise that I’ll do it all right, but I’ll try.” Dick smiled and standing up he pulled Bruce into a deep hug. The arms seemed less real then they had before, but the warmth and love was obvious. “....I’m going to miss you Chum.” A small huff of amusement brushed the top of Bruce's head.

“I love you too B.”

#whumptober2021 #no.1 #you have to let go #batman #fic #dick grayson #bruce wayne

7 notes · View notes

trashcankitty12 · 4 years ago

Text

Musa Headcanons:

She’s sassy, she’s musically gifted, and she could 100% steal your significant other if she wanted too.

Meet Musa Kai, the Guardian Fairy of Melody and the lead singer for her band. (Though her band is usually Riven, Tecna, and Layla... But whatever.)

(Again all headcanons here are for my main verse and my “Left” verse. Thank you.)

-Musa’s a daddy’s girl, whether she’ll admit it or not. There’s not much she wouldn’t do for her father (aside from give up her own music career). And he absolutely adores her and had a tendency to spoil her (though those moments were few and far between after Matlin passed). Ho-Boe is so proud of his daughter and how amazing she’s become, he regrets trying to make her stay out of the music world.

-(He knows it was Mandragora’s poison that killed her, that the medication the Company came up with during the war was only a temporary solution, and not music that killed her. But he felt that she ended up straining herself and going passed her limits and the limits of the medication by continuing to perform.)

-Musa may have been a daddy’s girl, but she was extremely close to her mother, too. She loved singing and learning how to play new instruments with her mother and adored the stories her mother shared of being at Alfea and the (sanitized and child-friendly) versions of her Company of Light stories.

-Musa was absolutely crushed when her mother died and saw her father’s anger surge. She was 8 and confused and scared. All she wanted was her mother. (She did her best to sing at Matlin’s funeral, she tried, but the words wouldn’t come and her father’s hands trembled too much to play his koto.)

-She stayed with her maternal grandparents for a long time after her mother’s death, wanting to give her father space and to let him get his record company back on track. (And his emotions. He’d destroyed so many of their music sheets and instruments and even some of their records… And Musa felt helpless at trying to make him feel better, especially since she wasn’t feeling her best either.)

-Her grandparents encouraged Musa to continue her love of music and helped her figure out how she could get her emotions out with help from her music. How therapeutic it could be.

-(They’d helped Matlin to pursue her passions, and they felt they owed Musa the same courtesy.)

-She didn’t have too many friends growing up, or cousins her age to hang out with. Ho-Boe was determined to homeschool her for as long as possible, wanting to protect her from the outside world and the dangers of it.

-(Musa, like Layla, became an expert at sneaking out of the house, though she has a feeling her grandparents always knew what she was up too and just chose to let her have her freedom.)

-Mostly she snuck out to concerts or clubs, soaking in the music and letting it feel her heart and soul. It always felt so tangible and real to her, as if it was its own entity. Being away from it for too long felt… Like she was dying.

-Musa did have one cousin she was close to, the only cousin her age really. Galatea.

-Yes, Princess Galatea is Musa’s cousin. Her father, King Garomius, is Musa’s father’s eldest cousin. He became next in line after Ho-Boe abdicated the throne to pursue his music career his life with Matlin. (And the two of them remained close, even after Ho-Boe’s other family decided he was dead to them.)

-In fact, Galatea’s Princess Ball was the first and last time Musa ever met her paternal grandparents and her great uncles and great aunts. But she ignored them, feeling that if they felt her mother wasn’t good enough for them, then neither was she.

-(She and Galatea had a great time though, and a wonderful childhood growing up, even if Galatea is two years younger.)

-Like most from the Harmonics realms, Musa has perfect pitch and exceptional hearing. (She can use echolocation if she focuses enough on the sounds. But it takes practice to do and it often causes migraines if done for too long.)

-Her favorite instrument is her flute, even if she doesn’t use it in her performances much. It makes her think of her father and it was the first instrument she had that was hers. (It’s even got her name engraved.)

-Musa transformed for the first time after she’d turned 11 and had been arguing with her father after he’d found her guitar and flute. She’d refused to let them be destroyed and her magic summoned itself to transform her and let her protect her instruments.

-Ho-Boe had been so excited about her transformation that he’d allowed her to keep the instruments and quickly began starting her on more magic lessons and prepping her for entrance exams to the Magical Dimensions’ fairy schools. (Musa had almost, almost been a Beta fairy. Ehhh.)

-When Musa got to Alfea, she really clicked with Tecna. Yes, it helped they were roommates and had to share space so often, but Tecna was just… Everything Musa felt she needed in a friend.

-Tecna’s listening skills and ability to pick up on things made it easy for Musa to open up to Tecna (on her terms, of course). And it made it easy for her to feel okay with zoning out for a while with her music if she was having a bad day (or a depressive episode) without feeling like she had to explain it all to Tecna. Because she didn’t, Tecna already knew and just went with it by going about her own projects.

-(And the day that Tecna asked about learning to play an instrument to help her develop a new skillset for a ‘just in case’ scenario made Musa’s whole year. She figured keyboards would be for the best since Tecna’s already fast with her fingers and accurate.)

-Musa is the fastest flyer out of the girls. And yes, she rubs it in. (Especially to Layla. They have flying races often.)

-Musa has regular tea-time with Flora. It helps her to remind herself to take care of herself (because Flora always asks about her feelings and health) and it gives her a chance to wind down for a bit.

-She loves her pixie, Tune, but the manner’s bit drives her crazy from time-to-time. Thankfully, Tune has learned that Musa’s being blunt doesn’t mean she’s rude and Musa has learned just because Tune is very into manners doesn’t mean she’s pretentious. (And they’ve both really bonded through movies and pretend formal parties with Piff.)

-Musa and Riven have had many ups and downs as a couple and have had their moments of anger, but they both try to tamper it down as they get older. It helps that they’ve come up with an ‘honesty box’. They both make a ‘box’ around themselves and just speak their minds. No judgements, just talking and explaining and, if all goes well, a plan is made to try and fix the problem… Or at least, an effort is made to understand the problem.

-Musa is one of the few who knows just how bad Riven’s mother fucked with him, and she does her best to remind him that the opinions and actions of a bitch like that shouldn’t bother him. She understands why it does, and it’s okay that he feels hurt, but he is a better person than he gives himself credit for. (He’s not like his mother… He’s better than her.)

-She’s the first one to initiate pillow-fights and prank wars within the Winx Group. (Though she’s learned the hard way not to try and prank a sleeping Bloom… A fire fairy that’s startled awake is prone to burning the person ‘attacking’ them. Not fun. Thank the Dragon’s for Layla.)

-She’s also the first one to fall asleep. (Musa’s sort of like a shark. If she stops moving, she’s out. Though instead of death, it’s sleep.)

-Even though Musa loved her short hair (easy to style and kept her cool when it was hot), she wanted to experiment with her hair a bit and let it elongate. So far, she likes it alright, but she may cut it again in the future. Or go for a completely new style. Who knows?

-Musa had the best grades in the group, but only because she fought hard to study for exams and did her best on the homework. (Her mother was an A student. She would be too.)

-Out of the specialists, Musa’s actually pretty close Brandon and Timmy, for differing reasons.

-Musa and Brandon enjoy talking shit together when playing games. They also have a game (bad habit) where when out in public, they make remarks about ‘who walks by to check them out’ and making up ‘interesting scenarios with those people’ just to see what Stella and Riven will do.

-(They were not prepared for Stella and Riven to try their own version of the game, one that went explicit real fast. Never again…)

-Timmy likes to come to Musa for advice on Tecna (and to help get gifts for Tecna without her knowing). And they enjoy talking about music theory and how music can affect the mind and hearing.

-Musa has scars. Lots of scars. Mostly from childhood misadventures, but there a few from her adventures at Alfea and on Earth.

-(She likes Earth, by the way. The music here isn’t as soul-reaching in her opinion, but she enjoys the effort we non-magical beings put into our creative works. Her favorite genre so far is surprisingly showtunes…)

-Musa has a taste for spicy food and honestly the rest of the Winx are concerned that she no longer has tastebuds. At all. Like none.

-She is the second most-likely Winx to get physical in a fight, the first being Layla. (Musa’s getting pretty good at learning how to use a bo-staff and has trained in Melody’s martial art of Gian Liea.)

-Musa loves watching singing-reality shows. She goes on a binge and does her best to figure out what’s liked the most so she can incorporate them into her next performance.

-Musa loves being on stage and getting recognized for her music. She does not like having a whole ‘hero worship’ thing going on around her. (Yes, she helped save the Magical Dimension a few times. But dammit that’s mostly because she lives in the Magical Dimension and the authorities seem to be useless.)

-Musa may or may not have a juvenile record. (And it may or may not have to do with ‘disturbing the peace’, ‘fighting in non-designated zones’, and ‘vandalism’.)

-She’s fluent in several languages from the Harmonics realms and has learned a few of Earth’s languages too. (Not to mention, the language of Magix, also known as the linking language of all the Magical Dimension.)

-During her time at Alfea, Musa was part of the jazz club, glee club, band, and choir. She also briefly played Magi-Ball, but had to quit due to an injury to her knees.

-It shouldn’t be a surprise, but Musa wants to be an amazing music star, just like her mother was. She just hopes she’s talented enough to make it. (Which her father swears she’s does, and that just makes her feel like the best musician ever.)

#winx club #winx club au #winx club headcanons #winx club musa #winx musa #winx musa headcanons #melody fairy #harmonic singer

25 notes · View notes

lou-is-lurking · 3 years ago

Note

For the asks: 1, 7, 8, 10, 20 :)

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

For YOI: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Lighthearted Humor …and/or PWP

The good ol' Hurt/Comfort trope is also a go-to.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

oof this is hard lol

At first, the colors of the dying day caressing the canopy of leaves above them reminded Otabek of JJ's living-room, and he'd never thought he'd miss that place so painfully. He would have given anything to be back there right now, on that rust-colored couch with its scratchy pillows, surrounded by ugly floral wallpaper and scented candles, the dull glow of the muted tv the only source of light.

Instead, the sun's descend behind them soon tinted the sky blood-red, darkening the shifting shadows beneath the trees while they continued to walk ever deeper into the color-palette of Otabek's nightmares.

This is from the first draft of my Otayuri Serial Killer AU. I had a specific image in my mind that ties back to several earlier scenes and I was quite happy that the words lined themselves up so neatly right off the bat.

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“JJ totally would have gotten the usual undeserved bonus points from the judges again, though,” Yuri sulked.

“Excuse you?" JJ scoffed, "Your program protocols practically have a note saying 'from all former Soviet states with love' attached to them!”

“And your parents have been busy bribing judges since their junior days, which I'm pretty sure predate the Soviet Union!”

It's from a WIP titled 'Quarantine Olympics', which I started when the 2020 World Championships were canceled. It was my lockdown entertainment: Otayuri being quarantined with JJ at his apartment. It's not necessarily that I'm super proud of this dialogue, but it made me giggle in the chaos of the pandemic, which was an achievement in itself lol. Also, amusing myself with my fav bois bickering while throwing shade at figure skating judges at the same time? Good shit.

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

Of the ones posted: Jeanflation. Short and fun. It stayed in its lane, didn't tempt me to go on three different tangents, and mercifully refrained from sprouting subplot and additional drama that would have inevitably condemned it to becoming yet another unfinished work waiting its turn in the depth of my hard drive.

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

Ideally, it's just me, my computer, my 20+ year-old keyboard that I will protect with my life, a glass of whisk(e)y, and peace and quiet.

On the other hand, I have happily churned out thousands of words crouched on the floor of an overcrowded lecture hall, no problem. I have also sat in front of my computer with ideal conditions and not managed to write a single sentence.

The perfect conditions for me seem to have surprisingly little to do with my surroundings, and everything to do with something in my brain aligning just right. And I sure as hell wish I knew what exactly that is 😅

(Asks from this meme)

#lou answers #coconuthugs #those snippet q's sent me on a wild journey through my wips 😂#found stuff I don't remember writing #love when that happens lol #ask meme #meme for fic writers

0 notes

revasser-destiny · 5 years ago

Note

Hello I am your lovely positive Mun anon! This is for you mun! I dare you to show which muns you love like friends or family! You can list as many people you love but for every one person you list, you must say what you feel about that mun.

@idv-ask-azrael ❥ You always make me smile and laugh with Azzy, or just with your amazing personality! I know I always worry you when I consume sweets (pls forgive me, mama), but I do love you very much as a mother figure. You're just the sweetest cupcake I met so far, and I hope everything goes well for you. Ily! ♡

@theunconcernedembalmer ❥Another mama figure I love and cherish. Her artsyle is a lovely dreamscape to escape into when you want to indulge in the world of her muses! She is very kind and smart (dont you dare say no, or give me the no u card), and I look up to her like a butterfly shaped cloud in the sky. Also CLLLLLLAUUUUDDDDEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAA

@ask-idv-embalmer ❥Papasop is a beautiful ray of stardust at night, who listens to you and tries to make you laugh. I love them very much, and I would give them a homemade cake in shape of a heart. Their art is like looking at a colorful meadow of personalities and gold itself in my opinion! They also know my weakness for dad jokes so that's bonus there ♡

@cezlovesart ❥SISTER! I really love Cezzu to the point she is family to me. If I could, I would happily give her my munies and cookies without hesitation. 100% would cuddle and boop this precious angel of a sibling ♡

@idv-mike-morton ❥CLOWN MUMMMMMMM! I remember the day I made a mistake and became your child. I still don't regret it, haha! You are the funniest and loveliest person I met so far, a goddess in my eyes if I may be honest. You always know how to make me laugh and smile, even make the days seem brighter than before. I hope everything goes well for you, and if not, I'll be praying that it'll get better! ♡

@ask-the-idv-magus IZUMUMMMM! She is the chaotically beautiful gf of my clown mum, and I cherish her like the sun (no pun intended) itself. She also knows how to make me laugh, and I enjoy talking with her about aus and story ideas in vc. I compare her to the gentle rain in spring, soothing and understanding, but also very beautiful and sweet as the flowers curl up in wonder.

@seer-is-here ❥Fellow Detective StalkerGay, aka Gayboi Starboi. She is the gayest owl person I know, and she's really funny that I tend to giggle a lot, especially in rank. Jaff is an uplifting angel to me, and she's so kind that often I cry.

@identityvarchives ❥We may have just met, but let me tell you are such a beautiful diamond in the gallery of AUs and storytelling. I look up to you a lot, but I also wish the best to come your way, Alice. Ily! ♡

@http-idv ❥Same with the lovely Alice here, I also look up to you as an inspiration. You're such a gorgeous emerald in the meadow of writing scenarios, and telling the story of your muse. Much love! ♡

@ask-prospector-v ❥BROSIS! *inhales* YOU ARE SUCH A PRECIOUS GREMLIN TWIN THAT I WOULD SACRIFICE EVERYTHING I HAVE SO YOU CAN BE SMILING AND HABBY! YOU MAKE ME LAUGH AND GO UWU, GOD ILY SO MUCH! QAQ♡

@flowwerpot ❥You always take my kokoro with your Flower AU, and for that, I love you. In all seriousness, their Flower AU is like a beautifully made cake decorated as the blossoming dawn. They're just the sweetest person I've met, and I am honored to even be called their child. Flower mama is OP ♡

@nootnotno ❥NOOT, ILY SO MUCH THAT I WANNA CUDDLE WITH YOU ALL DAY, NO HOMO! You're such a solicitous angel, and I'm so happy to have met you in my life. Thank you for being my friend, and I hope you continue being such a sweetheart penguin! ♡

@ask-victor-grantzcampbell ❥Kira Kuro is just,,,, an angel sent from the heavens and I cherish them plenty. Their artstyle and storytelling with Victor has me intrigued and wanting for more. They're such a sweetheart that I wonder sometimes that if meeting them was a wonderful dream.

@ask-thepuppeteer-idv ❥D,,,DIA! She has taken my kokoro many times as well, but I love her very much that I let it happen. Dia is a darling to have around, and an amazing friend to talk with. She makes me smile with her presence and ocs, even if I do cry when angst comes over at times (SOBBING NOISES). I would 100% hold her hand and call her the Queen of Beautiful Dahlias ♡

@idv-lunar-shine ❥Hello, may I hug the mun and the muses (if I can without dying) please? The AU with Alice and Lucie is a wondrous gem to view over and over again that it makes me cry often. The dark parts mixed with light moments is a beautiful bouquet to be shared with people who are interested, and I feel blessed being one of them. If I could, I would love to give yumi a gift but sadly like always, Im a shy birb

@theincessantmercenary ❥First off, I like to mention that I didn't expect a Naib to come in my inbox and make me cry two rivers for an hour. Second, Lucie is a delightful rose in spring and no one can change my mind whatsoever. Their version of Naib is an engaging performance to watch alongside with Alice's Eli and yumi's lunar shrine (how do i mention everyone without breaking the keyboard), and I can't wait to see more. Also Marpesia is precious and I will die for her, thanks for coming to my TedTalk 😔

@ask-idv-conartist ❥A beautiful person with an amazing muse and artstyle. Their introduction is just perfection, and I often reread it because holy shit, it's just exceptionally good. I love the amount of work and care put into Charlie (100% would smooch on forehead, and hold hands with), his story

@ask-cesarandamelia-idvoc ❥Okami is a talented person whose muses are on my must protecc list. They're just the most amiable person I know, and they deserve much love for their creativity. They've also made me cry because of their art and writing to which I say please give me back my heart pls

@ask-magnetboi-nortnort ❥Have I mention that your Norton is the funniest bastard I have ever met so far? Now you know how much I love your blog, interpretation of Norton, and lovely you! Please don't hesitate to take a break once, and take care of yourself! Love you, Cousin Nyeli! ♡

@stitchedstatic ❥Mama Static is an affable rose in the meadow, and I love her very much! Her storytelling is a wonderful experience as more pieces are revealed from the characters. I'm not just talking about Alec and Nikola (you can obviously infer that I love the two), it's also her reverse characters and Clarity that make me go doki doki about everything. Mama Static, I would give you all of my donut cakes without hesitation and carry you to victory ♡

@ask-idvgardener ❥Mama Gwitchy is a wonderful mama, and I love their protrayal of dear Gardener. I would protect them with all of my life because they deserve the best. 100% would smile at just their presence alone ♡

@idv-missionary ❥Hi, Mama Fluff! I would like to tell you that you are the most loveliest morning glory I have ever met, and I wish that happiness will come your way when you need it. Love you! ♡

@ask-vampire-hunter-naib ❥Woosh come back from the war, jk. I love your interpretation of a vampire hunter Naib (including the others as well~)! Makes me want to care him, but also punch him at the same time fhdhdhdh. Please know that you are a beloved jewel in my heart, and I hope that everything blooms better for you! ♡

@ask-chloenair ❥Briar, we need to talk about how importantly beautiful you are. The representation of your muses is beautifully done, and their backstories makes me want to do a chef kiss every time. Your artstyle is just the perfect dessert to go along with the main dish, and I honestly can't wait for more of your story to come soon. I love you, Briar! ♡

@asimplecherry ❥Ah yes, the Angst Demon. Queen of said subject herself. My inspiration for darker writings and art itself. She is also a singing queen, and that opinion cannot be changed. Her muses are blast to have around, especially gremlin Emma who thonks people in the face. I just love Cherry's work so far, and I pray that everything goes well for her.

@idv-askclaudedesaulnier ❥Number one criminal who has stolen my kokoro so many times I've lost count. Their version of Claude is a darker, yet mystifying fairytale - which I fell in love with and thus my love for Claude began. Their artstyle is a mesmerizing star at night that carries on a different story in each of their blogs. And Bee, you are the most marvelous person I met so far, and I love you for being you. Take care of yourself, okay? Love you ♡

@peachy-teacakes ❥Dal here is my wise big sister who can also be dumb at the same time. Doesn't stop me from loving her because of her golden heart. Did I mention that she's a very beautiful being on this planet to the point that I believe she is a Queen? 😔♡

@ask-sculptor ❥My egg sister who apparently thinks that Wick is a, um.... not going to continue that because I know a couple will be screaming soon after i post this (XD). Winter is a beloved snowflake (no pun intended) and she is chaotically funny at the same time. Charlie Gayboi is my tol big bro, and you cant change my mind. ♡

@hatsirsir ❥BIG BROTHER! CAN I JUST SAY I APPRECIATE YOUR EXISTENCE EVERYDAY BECAUSE YOU ARE THE SWEETEST AND MOST CONSIDERATE PERSON I HAVE EVER MET! I CANT DIE FOR YOU, BUT I WILL HAPPILY COMPLIMENT WITHOUT HESITATION! YOU MAKE ME SMILE AND CRY HAPPY TEARS EVERYDAY WITH YOUR LOVING COMMENTS! YOUR CHARACTERS MAKE ME SOFT (except for obvious rats) AND PUT ME IN A CUDDLY MOOD. ILY HAT QAQ! ♡

#this took me about 7 hours finish dhdhdh #look I want to compliment every living being that is close to me qwq #i love everyone on this post and im beginning to cherish more people #*gently sends hugs and kisses*#nini is sobbing

60 notes · View notes

semperintrepida · 4 years ago

Text

NaNoWriMo; 03 ➔ worthwhile

After I finished Kuno, I said I’d never write another novel again. It’s just so much fucking work, and my writing process is so slow, and I hate hate hate the idea of abandoning anything even though shit happens sometimes.

Committing to writing a novel isn’t something I take on lightly.

I struggled a lot this summer with negative feelings around my writing. Lots of This [story] is some terrible shit and Why am I even doing this? and Who cares about this — no one’s reading it anyway.

I try not to whinge about such things here on Tumblr, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been wrestling with my bullshit behind the scenes. And while all that was swirling around my brain, I had to figure out my answer to this:

Do I want to put in the effort to write a 100k word novel that no one will read?

written in a dying fandom 👎

main character’s not canon Kassandra 👎

rating is M 👎👎👎

Kyra’s in this, but their relationship is not the focus* 👎👎👎

I care a lot about this story, and the stories I care the most about are always the ones that are read the least** 👎

I said to myself: Okay, you’ve wanted to write this character for over a year, and you’ve wanted to write a story like this for nearly twenty. Put up, or shut up.

So I wrote the first story arc. First three chapters, about 17k words. And the writing... every moment of it was fun. I’d sit at the keyboard just cackling because godddd, this character is delicious and dark and I get to drag her into the light.

And then I put the draft away for the rest of the summer.

Now I’m obsessed. I can’t think about anything else. I go to sleep puzzling out plot points and I wake up fucking pissed that I have to go to work instead of getting to write. And when I do get the time to sit and write, it’s like the Hallelujah Chorus.

I’ve always wanted to write entertaining stories well told. Now I just want to write. It’s an interesting simplification. I’ve kicked my readers to the curb. Sorry y’all, it’s not about you, it’s about me now.

“The answers you want can come only from the work itself.” It’s a brave new world.

*When we meet Kassandra in this tale, she is Fucked Up. She’s not exactly relationship material. While I see a kyssandra endgame in the future, that burn’s going to be soooo slow, it’s going to slip right past the end of this story and into...

**This situation is so common it has a page on TV Tropes: Magnum Opus Dissonance

#nanowrimo diary #magnum opus dissonance #the quote is from bonnie friedman's 'writing past dark'#which is a book i recommend to anyone who writes

9 notes · View notes

ofwolvesandbutterflies · 5 years ago

Text

f minor

Pairing: NCT’s Jung Jaehyun x Reader

Genre: steamy fluff ig

Tags: nonidol!au, pianist!jaehyun, lowkeyswimmer!jaehyun

Warnings: m, language, gEttInG MaTURe ConTenT, almOst SmuT

A/N: i uh wrote a little blurby something in an effort to be good at writing lol

Synopsis: in which you have no idea how to play piano and jaehyun has a question

I watched quietly, cheeks pinkening when I realized just how closely I'd been studying the dance of his fingers flitting up and down the black and white keys of the piano. My gaze traveled upwards over the veins of his forearms, the clean cut of his muscles, the broadening of his shoulders, the soft curve of his concentrated smile, the angle of his tightened jawline. He wasn’t perfect, no. But he was attractive. He was attractive, sweet, polite, and charming and he knew it.

“-is ‘f’, right? I’m not hallucinating, this is ‘f’?” Roughly shaken out of my reverie, my gaze shot from his fingers back up to his face. He turned to look towards me. “This is ‘f’, right?”

The sound of a chord hit my ears and I glanced back toward his fingers. White, white, white… as someone who hadn’t played the piano extensively, many of the keys really looked the same to me.

“Uh-” in an effort to keep my eyes and thoughts from wandering too far, I searched my memory for any recollection of piano knowledge. Aside from a couple lessons I had taken in primary school, my ability to understand the piano was limited to the location of the ‘c’ key on the jumbled map of more than eighty keys. “I have no idea. I-I don’t play piano.”

My body stiffened when he paused. From my standpoint right beside him, I could see all of the guitar chords on the paper… Guitar chords wouldn’t help me in this case. He chuckled good-naturedly, dropping an arm to wrap playfully around my waist in a type of one-armed hug. The layout of his fingers changed. White.. White, black, white. The hum of a different sound rang out in the otherwise emptiness of the room.

“Ahh… right, that was ‘f’ because this is ‘f minor…” he trailed off, voice blending in with the sound of the chord slowly dying out. Without anything else to do but watch, I smiled.

“Well, that was helpful. I still gotta practice more.” With a heavy sigh, he dropped his arm to check his watch. “Oh shit… I better pack up, my parents are expecting me within the hour.”

“So soon?” I asked, feigning nonchalance. The absence of his arm around my waist felt even more prominent when he began to pack up. He shot me a look, eyes rolling.

“It’s been four hours, dummy. You’re crazy if you still want me here,” a low chuckle rumbled through his throat and he bent down to unplug his electric keyboard from the wall. The blood rushed back to my face as my eyes traced the muscles of his arms, the muscles of his waist torso, thighs…

“You coming to practice on Tuesday?” I questioned, doing my best not to sound too excited.

“Pfft, yeah,” he snorted. “I’m nervous as hell. This is my first time doing this type of…” he paused to gesture towards his keyboard. “- type of performance.”

“It’s just a bunch of younger kids,” I offered. “Kinda like a swim meet. Except with clothes.”

A deep laughed bubbled past his lips and he raised a single eyebrow in my direction. By this time, he was completely packed up, leaned up against the wall of the music room right beside me.

“If I’m being honest, I’m more comfortable at a swim meet with no clothes on.”

My skin warmed at his proximity, inevitable smile dancing hesitantly along my lips. However, despite the heat trilling through my veins, a chilling draft from the aged ventilation system shot a shiver down my spine. Without hesitation, he shrugged off the jacket he had just put on and placed it over my shoulders. My lips parted in disbelief as he adjusted the heavy, layered cloth around my shivering body. A smile painted itself on his chapped lips.

“O-oh, wait-” I grabbed his hands on instinct before he could pull away and held him there, right in front of me. “A-aren’t you c-cold, too?”

The smile on his lips grew larger and his hands slipped out of my icy grasp to slide down my waist slyly. My fingers smoothed over the fabric of his long sleeves, taking note of the sculpted pecs beneath his shirt. I watched, curiously, as his hands danced their way past the opened zipper and found purchase underneath my sweater on the burning hot skin of my hips. He leaned towards me, resting a shoulder on the wall beside me, taller frame dwarfing mine in an instant.

“I think I can manage.”

His dazzling smile stopped every coherent thought from my mind and I blinked furiously, tearing my gaze away from his eyes.

“You-you, I mean - I… Wait-” I stuttered lamely, eager to change the subject in an effort to draw the attention from myself. “You -uhm- you didn’t have an power outlet earlier when we were practicing, I mean. Or, did you? I mean, I couldn’t hear anything-”

“I didn’t have an outlet earlier, no.” He chuckled, nudging my knees apart with his. Once space was made, he situated himself between my legs. “I was just fingering the keys. But there will be none of that for the performance. I should have an outlet then.”

On a stroke of newfound confidence, I took my chance. Squaring my shoulders, I batted my eyelashes cheekily and shot him a sneaky smile.

“Oh no, silly. There can be no fingering during the performance.”

Immediately his gaze darkened and his eyes shot towards mine. I traced the curve of my bottom lip with my tongue, fingers caressing the skin of his jaw and tugging the strands of his soft hair by the nape of his neck. He leaned closer, breath fanning out over my skin. The overwhelming scent of pine and peppermint in his cologne sent my mind reeling.

“Well then, princess.” His voice dropped an octave, lips pressed against my jugular. “If not during the performance, why not now?”

My eyelids fluttered dangerously when he pressed a trail of kisses from my pulse to my lips. At once, his lips closed over mine coaxing the sweetest of breathy whines from my mouth. His hands slid down the curve of my ass, lifting my frame up only to push my body against the wall. A moan fell from my lips and into his awaiting mouth and with him pressed flush against me, I could feel every dip and crevice of the muscles covering his heaving torso. Teeth teased my bottom lip and our tongues danced, fighting for dominance. My hands fell back down his shoulders, only to cup his face closer.

“Babe,” I gasped, breathless, pulling away when his hips rutted up against mine, showcasing the unfortunate hard-on he sported. “I thought your parents were expecting you home soon.”

“Mmm…” He growled, bending down to place another hungry kiss over my mouth. One hand rested on the curve of my ass, the other underneath my thigh. “I’ll just tell them…” Another kiss. “- that you needed help-” another kiss. “-with something... urgent. It’ll be fine. They love you.”

“Is it me that needs help, or you?” I giggled, playfully gyrating my hips to tease him. His hips bucked upwards and his forehead fell against my shoulder. A moan tore itself from his lips.

“O-oh fuck, princess.” Grabbing me, he spun around to place me on his electric keyboard. His eyes flashed with something dangerous and he chuckled darkly. “Trust me when I say it’s gonna be you. You won’t be able to stand, let alone walk, by the time I’m done with you.”

193 notes · View notes

darlinglissa · 5 years ago

Text

no rest for the wicked

steph is just. so tired. and the batboys are so insufferable. just some shenanigans for 4,503 words.

summary:

steph is a tired college student, just trying to make her way to her bachelor’s degree at least. doing this simultaneously with her nightly vigilantism is difficult and exhausting, but she makes it work dammit. she doesn’t even mind too much that her aforementioned nightly vigilantism comes with strange bat people that she isn’t fully convinced are people. but if one more tights-wearing, creepily-looming bat climbs through her window on her night off to actually complete an essay for once she’s going to make them write the six page essay for her, or so help her.

big big big thank you to @wisdom-walks-alone for being the best beta this girl could ask for!!!

read it on ao3!

Stephanie Brown is having what she likes to call a Shit Day. She’s just tired all around, and when it starts affecting her nightly hobby she starts to rethink her priorities for the first time in—she can’t remember when. Which then causes an existential crisis that she, at the ripe age of 21, should not be going through yet. Her crisis turns into an absolute nosedive of a tailspin when, of all the people in her life, Bruce “I’m Batman” Wayne notices that her help on the case is turning hindrance instead and tells her to take the next few nights off the case.

“It’ll still be there when you come back,” he says.

She may or may not stare at him for five minutes too long, and he may question his stance on asking her to work with them on the Falcone case of the week, but she goes home either way. Steph is not about to look this gift horse in the mouth, even if her entire view on life has shifted a solid eighty degrees to the right in less than two minutes.

And boy, does she not regret her decision to go home. A full night’s sleep, an actual breakfast that isn’t from a drive-thru on her way to her eight am class that she’s always been perpetually late to, and she is on time to her class for the first time. In all honesty, Steph is living her best life in the first two hours of her day.

And it didn’t stop there: she’s on time to all three classes she has, she’s actually awake for the classes, and her notes are helpful instead of hopeless scribbles of random key words and names of people. She’s feeling like the student she always knew she could be, but was always too tired to be.

When she gets home after her last class, she takes her time to shower and put on her comfiest pajamas, and make a dinner that isn’t frozen solid. The dinner is on the table, her books are opened and scattered around her, and Steph is feeling that ripe sense of productivity that has eluded her since she started offering the bats her help. With no risk of interruption—surely Bruce knew what a night off was when he offered her to take some—she eats lazily while working on some chemistry problems.

She abandons the chemistry homework when she’s finished eating, and cleans her plate instead of throwing it in the dishwasher without a care. This productivity shtick ain’t so bad, it at least keeps her apartment cleaner—not clean, but cleaner.

Her planner is propped up against her bag, the day’s assignments actually written down neatly instead of rushed abbreviations that take an hour to decipher, and she gives it a look-over. Steph realizes that with this new downtime she’s been given she can actually get a head start on an essay due in a few days. “Head start” is used loosely, but starting it two days in advance is a new experience for her. She usually rushes the day of due to late nights on the streets and hopes it doesn’t actually look like it was rushed.

Blanket on, pillows fluffed behind her, and laptop fully charged, Steph settles into her couch to start this thematic essay that’s been gnawing at her mind since it was assigned. The introductory paragraph is slow to set up, but she can feel her brain gaining momentum as she puzzles out her argument. Her brow is furrowed and her fingers are flying across the keyboard, with the backspace having the most hits. She’s getting there, she is, her thesis is coming together so nicely and her ideas are flowing freely, she hasn’t felt adrenaline from something other than freefalls in...months? Years? Her fingers stutter and she rereads her thesis. This is such bull—

A knock on her window almost has her sprawled on the floor, and her hands catch her laptop at the last possible second. Her head snaps over to the window and there, in all his black and blue spandexed glory, was Dick Grayson, in his stupid skintight spandex suit and his stupid sheepish but pained grin, bleeding on her fire escape. Which she just cleaned her own blood off of.

Irritated didn’t cover the slight boiling she could feel in her veins. She gives one last look at her document as she places her laptop on the coffee table, and another knock resounds through her living room.

“Okay! Okay. You win this round, Night-dork.” Steph goes over to her window and opens the hatch, letting the first Boy Wonder climb—more like fall—into her apartment. Her eyes follow his form as he all but crawls to her kitchen’s island, his domino being tossed onto the counter carelessly. She follows slowly, trying not to hate the man before he’s done anything other than exist, and maybe breathe, in her apartment. “Thanks for not bleeding on my carpet, too.”

Dick glances up at her before going back to his search for her first aid kit. “My pleasure, courtesy is my middle name.” His voice is strained, but his demeanor is purposely relaxed.

“Your middle name is John.” She watches him struggle, eyes darting from him at the cabinet above her fridge, where he’s reaching up even though it’s obviously hurting him, to the drawer beside her sink where her first aid kit is tucked away.

“It’s close enough,” he says with a tight shrug. He continues to search through her baking sheets and cooling racks.

Realizing he won’t be leaving that cabinet for a while, Steph sighs and pushes his body to the right drawer. He turns that sheepish-but-pained grin at her again, and she just pushes it away from her with a groan. Dick takes a heavy seat on one of her island’s stools, opening the kit with his non-bloody hand.

“It’s my day off. Do you know what that is?” she asks him, eyeing the needle and thread in his hands with mild interest as he misses the needle’s eye twice before taking it and threading it herself. Exasperation bubbles to the surface, and after Dick starts stitching his side she shuffles away to the couch. That grin seems permanently fixed on his face whenever she looks at him, so she stops looking at him and busies herself with folding the blanket that fell to the floor with her. “It’s this really cool thing where I stay home and not do what I would normally do. Like deal with your blood in my apartment.”

For a brief moment only Steph’s defeated sigh and Dick’s pained breaths are all that can be heard, and then Dick breaks it between stitches. “Yeah, sorry about this.” That grin is facing her and she looks at the blanket like it has a map that will lead her out of this conversation. Hell, out of this entire interaction. “You were the closest safe house, and I had a bit of a...situation.” He gestures to his side meaningfully with his head, as if Steph has no idea what situation he could possibly be referring to. “Hey, can you hand me the scissors?”

Dropping the blanket on the couch, Steph grabs the scissors from the other side of the island and hands them to him. He thanks her softly in that Earnest and Sincere Dick Grayson way, which makes it increasingly hard to be irritated with him, which in itself is irritating. He cuts the thread and ties it off a little sloppily, but effectively.

“There, all done and no one’s dead.” Dick stands up, grunting only slightly as he does so, and sets everything back in the first aid kit.

Steph notices that he puts it all in more neatly than it had been to begin with—she’s always in a hurry to get it back in the drawer and get to bed, don’t judge—and begrudgingly takes it when he hands it to her gently. She can feel Dick’s eyes on her as she puts it in its drawer, then she turns to face him, leaning against the drawer as it shuts. “Okay, you’re no longer in danger of dying, and I have an essay to write, so shoo.” She makes a shooing motion with her hands.

Her weight is fully being supported by her counter and Dick is looking at her with his kicked puppy eyes that make her give in sooner than she would like to admit. Steph slumps down a little more, legs stretched out in front of her and feet flat against the floor. She meets his gaze head on, feeling all the productivity and triumph from the day drain out of her so fast she’s a little dizzy. “What.”

His pout deepens, and she can tell he knows exactly what he’s doing. “I feel bad, Steph.” Dick leans into the stool’s back and flattens his hands on the island’s counter. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

And there’s the Dick Grayson Guilt Trip.

Steph’s eyes trail over to her laptop one last time, the screen gone black from inactivity. She huffs a laugh, because this is her life, and it actually feels more real with a newly-stitched up dude in her kitchen than writing an essay early. For the second time in less than two days she finds herself having a mini crisis, but Dick’s puppy dog eyes snap her back. Steph rolls her eyes, dragging herself to her fridge. “You’re not intruding, Dick.”

Dick’s grin goes from sheepish to genuine with a touch of triumph, and he leans his body forward against the counter. “Great! So how does a nice midnight snack sound?”

She looks away from the orange juice she’s pulling off the shelf to stare at Dick in distrust. “You aren’t going near my stove, Grayson. I don’t need a small fire to deal with on top of my bloody fire escape.” A glass is taken from the shelf beside the fridge, and as she pours the juice into it she lets herself grin at Dick’s spluttering.

“I wouldn’t burn your kitchen down this time! I’ve gotten better,” he promises, pointing a red stained finger in her direction. Steph continues to stare at him with that deadpan expression she practiced from Alfred, though she knows hers isn’t half as successful as the stern butler’s. “I’ve been practicing!”

“Well, you can practice somewhere that isn’t my kitchen. I’ll make us pancakes if you stop looking at me like I took Jason’s gun to your favorite suit,” she says, bringing her glass to her lips.

Dick nods, pointedly looking away from her and over at the laptop on the coffee table, and wisely stays silent for the moment.

Steph whips the batter up as quickly as she can, flour settling on her shirt and the counter despite her careful measuring and whisking. The stack of pancakes towers on her chipped plate, and when the batter runs out she splits them between the two of them.

They eat in relative silence, until Steph breaks it when she finishes eating, feeling exhaustion seep into her bones. She eyes the clock on her microwave, the green numbers flashing 12:45; her 9:30 class crosses her mind like a neon sign saying go to bed, dumbass. Tense hands rub at her eyes before she pushes her chair back.

“This has been a lovely, if not bloody, visit,” she says, picking up her plate and stealing Dick’s even though he still had a couple bites left.

“Hey!”

She ignores this maturely, cleaning the plates and feeling satisfaction in her petty revenge. “But it’s getting late and I’m tired. You know the exit.”

Without waiting to make sure he actually leaves, Steph drags herself to her bedroom and kicks the door shut with her foot. In the next moment she’s face down on her bed and passes out when her head hits the duvet.

Surely tomorrow will be better is the last thought that dashes through her sleep-muddled mind.

---

Tomorrow isn’t better. She sleeps through her alarm, and misses her first class. She curses Dick’s name her whole drive to campus while she chugs coffee. She doesn’t even like coffee.

The one class she’s able to make it to sucks the joy of life out of her, and when she tries to heat up the leftovers she brought with her for lunch the microwave went up in flames.

(Yeah, Bruce will be the one getting that bill.)

Steph trudges into her apartment and just as she closes the door she realizes that she still has that essay, and she really doesn’t want to have to do it all on the last day possible. She doesn’t even have a complete introduction paragraph.

So she makes a nice batch of waffles to help lick her wounds, and when she’s full and feeling slightly better she sets forth to spite-finish her essay.

Her essay is actually coming along, one body paragraph finished and her argument set in stone, and she’s feeling that satisfaction building in her gut. A smile is tugging at her lips, and the idea of finishing it early is seeming more plausible.

But then her window is being slammed open and a small body is shoved through.

Stephanie most definitely does not scream, and she will forever deny it.

Timothy “Pain in Steph’s Ass” Drake climbs in after Damian—who’s becoming increasingly feral by the second—and the laptop is abandoned once again. Unlike last night, Steph has no hopes of getting back to the document and has resigned herself to her fate of finishing it all tomorrow.

Steph eyes the feral child practically vibrating with rage, then looks over at Tim, who appears to be as calm as can be when paired with a murderous child. After shutting the window behind him, Tim gives a little wave, pulling his domino off with the motion. “Hey, honey, I’m home?”

All that satisfaction left her in droves, and she stalks over to her laptop and shuts it with a snap.

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Tim flinch just barely, and a smidge of satisfaction returns, but it’s quickly taken away when she notices Damian’s glare has settled on her. The sigh that leaves her body is heavy and tired, but she pushes forward and leans against the back of her couch to stare them down nonetheless.

“Tim, babe, what the hell do you want on my night off?” Steph crosses her arms over her chest, resting her chin in one of her palms. She glances over at Damian again but looks away from his piercing green eyes that promise pain. “And why does the bat-brat look ready to put me in a real grave?”

Tim turns to Damian with a grimace, and tries to start explaining, “You’re the only one technically available tonight, so—”

Damian cuts him off sharply. “So you need to help us with this lead so we can leave and attend more pressing matters. After all, crime doesn’t take nights off.”

Tim hides his face in his hands, muffling a groan. “I told you to let me do the talking.”

The smaller boy turns on his heel, his cape fluttering behind him, making him look just like Batman after a scolding for a night gone worse than it should have. “I agreed to nothing of the sort, Drake.” He walks like he’s commanding the room, rummaging through Steph’s fridge as if he has the right. Like he’s Bruce Wayne and could buy her out of house and home.

(Well, he actually could, in all likelihood.)

Steph doesn’t like the comparison her mind is making, so she interrupts before it can go any further. “I don’t care who does the talking, just give me the info so you can leave faster.”

Tim’s hands run down his face and he looks at Steph pleadingly. “I know it’s your night off, but no one else would answer their comms and we really need an extra pair of eyes on this case. We’re driving ourselves crazy looking at the same clues over and over.”

Steph sighs, and takes in the bags under Tim’s eyes and Damian’s tensed shoulders. She lets out a groan, leaning against the couch back even heavier and getting a sense of deja vu with this feeling of defeat. “Okay.”

Damian scoffs from his place at her fridge before he moves on to browsing through her cabinets. “Of course you will, it’s your duty.”

Tim interrupts before Steph can retaliate with her, arguably, witty and biting remark. “Great, thank you, I love you, please look at the file.”

She begrudgingly takes the folder from her boyfriend’s hand, moving to plop on the couch. Papers are strewn about within seconds, and as Steph scans the information her mind is happy to have something more familiar to focus on.

It’s quiet aside from pages shuffling and Damian finally finding suitable tea bags, filling her kettle with water. Tim settles down next to her, relaxing for what must be the first time tonight.

“Got stuck with Bruce Jr.? What’d you do to get that sentence?” she asks, eyes not leaving the pages.

Tim scoots in closer. “I was the only one who didn’t have an excuse not to work with him.”

Steph’s pen circles and connects a few sentences, and she hands the paper to Tim. She moves on to the next paper, scanning for pertinent facts, adding more circles and lines. “Dick wouldn’t take him tonight?”

He looks over her shoulder, taking papers as she passes them off and connects the dots she’s connecting. “He’s on medical leave. Stab wound, I think?”

Her pen stops mid-circle before she forces herself to finish the marking. “Yeah, that was a thing.”

“‘That was a thing’?” Tim asks as he leans back, staring at Steph in mild confusion.

“Yeah, he used my needle and thread last night. Didn’t think it would actually be an issue for him,” she says as calmly as she can, very aware of the unhappy child pouring boiling water a few feet behind them.

Sensing her forced nonchalance—and glancing back at Damian before looking back at her—he drops it.

“It’s the bodyguard, he’s the link,” she declares, pushing the papers into the folder and the folder into Tim’s lap. “Good luck, he’s built like a linebacker.”

Damian sniffs derisively, sipping his tea like the snooty brat he was raised to be. “If I had had another half hour—”

“Thanks, you’re the best,” Tim says loudly, giving Damian a look. Damian just huffs and turns back to his tea. Tim gives Steph a kiss on her cheek before standing and putting his domino back on. “Damian, we should get going so we can get some intel before we have to head home.”

Steph jumps up and slides the window open, happy to let the two walking headaches exit her premises. “Yep, you should get going, little demon.”

Damian sneers at her, but finishes his tea and puts his mug in the sink. “Thank you for your hospitality, brat-girl.” He walks past her to the window ledge, sliding out to the fire escape. “The state of your fire escape is appalling.”

“Yeah, whatever bat-brat, go annoy that bodyguard for a while,” she replies, giving him a slight push as she walks by to go put his mug in the dishwasher and avoiding the right hook thrown back at her. She passes Tim and gives him a quick kiss while pointedly ignoring Damian’s age-appropriate hiss of disgust.

“See you Friday?” Tim asks before he follows Damian out the window.

Steph looks back from the sink, and smiles. “Yep, as always.”

Tim disappears from her fire escape and Steph’s shoulders fall slightly. After the dishwasher is turned on because she’s a responsible adult and chores are her bitch, she falls into bed.

Tomorrow, she thinks, is another day, huh?

---

Steph wakes up to sunlight filtering through her curtains and 11:14 on her alarm clock. The light bugs her into getting up, but she feels rested enough as she stretches her joints. She takes a hot shower, and gets into comfy sweats and a sweater.

Thursdays will be her favorite day for the next two months. No classes make for a relaxed and mostly productive day, if not wonderful for her sanity.

So she takes her time making a nice breakfast of eggs and toast, and after unloading the dishwasher and putting her breakfast dishes into it, she’s feeling happy and productive. Her laptop is open and ready, and she settles in for the long haul to finish this goddamn essay.

She’s working at a steady pace, getting into the zone of writing about themes and connecting ideas and only semi-hating it. The time passes quickly, and she’s halfway to her six page minimum and mentally screaming because she’s gotten this far, she can finish it on time for the first time in years.

It’s when she’s just reached the middle of her fourth page that her window is smashed to pieces, glass littering her floor.

Steph is ready to cry.

But she’s been taught—well, she inferred from a few grunts—to use emotion as a driving force and grabs her slugger from under the couch and swings it at the figure, who is distracted by trying to avoid the shards of glass underfoot. Through his lapse of attention, he doesn’t dodge fast enough.

Jason now has a bruise blooming on his right shoulder blade, his face contorted in pain before twisting into a scowl aimed at Steph. Normally, it would have been effective, and it would have been if Steph wasn’t so angry and stressed. She drops her bat, and it rolls under her coffee table.

“It’s the middle of the fucking day, why the everloving fuck are you running around in your furry suit, you jackass?”

Jason’s scowl deepens, offense written over every inch of his face. He brushes glass off his shoulders, letting the pieces clatter against their kin on the floor. “I am not like the bat-freaks, Brown. I was trying to go undercover in a drug gang’s meeting, but I was found out. I lost them a few blocks back, so I had to move to a safe location before they caught my trail again. I caught sight of one of the guys just as I was climbing up so I was a bit rushed. You were closest, don’t be thinkin’ anything of it, you wouldn’t be my first choice if I had a choice.”

“Oh boy, you sure know how to make a girl feel special, Todd.” She stalks over to the closet in the hall, and when she’s back in front of him she hands him the broom and dustpan.

He takes it and just stares at it for a second before looking back up at her with an eyebrow raised. “You’re kidding me.”

Steph shakes her head. “Nope.”

Jason heaves a sigh, but starts sweeping the glass into a pile. As he cleans his mess, Steph looks over at the microwave clock. 4:06. She curses under her breath, rubbing her eyes for a moment to relieve the headache coming on.

“Did I interrupt something?”

She lowers her hands, crossing her arms, to see Jason looking up at her questioningly. She shrugs with one shoulder, glancing at her laptop. “Only an essay that the universe doesn’t want me to finish on time. No biggie.”

Jason hums lightly with a nod, brushing the glass into the dustpan, but doesn’t say anything more. An idea sparks in Steph’s muddled brain, and she eyes Jason’s hunched form with more interest.

“Hey, Jay, you like literature, right?” A content smile plays on Steph’s lips.

Jason glanced up, but stopped his motion as soon as he caught sight of the cat who ate the canary. “I...dabble.” He hesitates, as if he doesn’t want to finish his thought, but he does anyway. “Why?”

“Well, you see, my dear Jaybird—”

“—Don’t call me that—”

“—this essay is on Persuasion, which I didn’t actually read? Anyway—”

“—didn’t actually read, what the fuck is wrong with you—”

“—I’m writing about the theme of appearances, and my argument is actually kinda strong?”

Jason throws the glass into the trash can, then moves to sit on the couch and grabs her laptop. “All right. Open the doc.”

Steph grins, taking the laptop and doing as he asked. It worked. It was the longest of shots and it fucking worked. He reads what she has and gives honest—and really harsh?—critiques, picking her essay apart.

“Then fix it!” she exclaims, throwing her hands in the air. She can only take so much criticism before it gets on her nerves. “How do I structure it, oh, master writer? If my quotes are so stupid, what quotes would be better?”

Off the top of his head, Jason lists three quotes. And she has to admit it: they fit her argument perfectly. She grumbles as she flips through the book to find the quotes.

As he rambles on about the theme and effective arguments, Steph absentmindedly reflects that this would have been a great punishment if he didn’t look like he was enjoying it so damn much. In fact, it makes her connect school to Jason, and how he was a really good student from what Alfred says.

His borderline monologue is cut off as Steph sits up and looks at him curiously. Jason realizes that she hasn’t been listening and gives her an unamused look. “Really?”

She ignores him. “Why didn’t you go on to college?”

Taken aback by the random question, Jason looks more like a deer in headlights than the terrorizer of Gotham’s crime syndicate. “Uh, because I’m legally dead?”

Steph rolls her eyes. “Please, your dad’s the wealthiest guy in Gotham, he can pull some strings in the right places.” She stops at the angry fire building in his eyes at the mention of Bruce and backtracks like the expert she is. “Or you could literally make a fake identity? You’re a crime lord, you aren’t above fake identities, are you?”

Jason looks lost in thought for a moment, before seamlessly returning to his essay argument-turned-rant as if he hadn’t even stopped. Steph notes the sore subject and actually pays attention this time around, fixing the essay with his help.

---

For the first time in weeks, Steph barges through Jason’s window with a crazed grin on her face.

“Uh, what the fuck are you doing here?” Jason asks from his stove, water boiling beside him.

She doesn’t reply, just walks over to him with a bounce in her step, shoving a stack of papers in his face. The red A is clear as day, and Jason will forever deny the proud grin and high five that overtakes him in that moment.

19 notes · View notes